Pinsent Masons has cashed in on its position on the Government’s central legal panel by snaring a £650m mandate to advise the Home Office on a new 10-year programme to tighten security at the UK's borders.
The national giant bagged the eye-catching instruction to advise on the hi-tech ‘e-borders’ system after winning a competitive tender process against other firms on the Government’s Catalist panel.
The Home Office awarded a 10-year contract to an eight-member consortium led by US-based defence company Raytheon Systems to develop a new IT system and database for
The other members of the consortium, dubbed ‘Trusted Borders’, are Accenture, Detica, Serco, QinetiQ, Steria, Capgemini and DAON.
Pinsents has advised the Home Office’s Borders & Immigration Agency for two years on the project, which will include the analysis of data from air, sea and rail passengers as they enter and leave the
David Isaac and Simon Colvin, both partners in Pinsents’ outsourcing, technology and commercial practice, led the team on the deal, with support from associate Justin Chan.
Isaac, who heads up Pinsents’ central government team, also worked closely with Home Office in-house lawyer Charlotte Goldberg.
The contract, which runs until 2017, marks one of the most high-profile Government procurement schemes in recent years. It comes as part of a wider £1.2bn drive by
Raytheon and the other seven consortium members used their own in-house lawyers on the deal.
The Government’s 48-strong legal roster, formerly known as L-Cat, was unveiled during the summer and includes firms such as Allen & Overy, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Field Fisher Waterhouse, which was last year appointed sole legal adviser on the Home Office’s controversial ID cards programme.
