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Increasing a Fixed Fee Cap in Law Firm Engagement Letters

Abstract

I work as an in-house lawyer for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (“EBRD”). As a public institution, EBRD is subject to strict procurement rules whenever it engages contractors. In general terms, at least one law firm will be engaged by EBRD for each project which it enters into and, given that EBRD finances hundreds of projects every year, the law firm engagement is a key part of each project cycle: there is standard documentation which must be used (from which no serious deviations are permitted) and there are very developed and structured legal selection and procurement procedures to be followed internally before EBRD enters into (or amends) any law firm engagement. It is an internal rule for EBRD in-house lawyers that they can agree directly a selection of outside counsel with a fixed cap without embarking on a full competitive selection procedure if the overall contracted legal cost is likely to be less than a certain amount; if the legal cost is likely to exceed that sum then the basic assumption is that a competitive selection process must be run by which the EBRD team selects one from not less than four competing law firms based on their technical and financial proposals. For all EBRD law firm engagements, a fee cap is generally mandatory.

Author

Portrait image of James Wilson
James Wilson
Senior Counsel, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, UK

James Wilson, Senior Counsel, joined EBRD in 2005. He has advised on over 150 signed debt and equity financings in many of the EBRD countries particularly in the sectors of mining and natural resources, renewable energy, real estate, distressed assets, private equity funds and ship finance. Prior to EBRD, James was a corporate M&A lawyer focussing on private equity transactions and fundraisings at Lovells London with secondments to the Lovells, Moscow and Prague offices. James has an LLB Honours in Scots law from the University of Aberdeen, an LLM in maritime law from the University of Southampton and was admitted as a Scots solicitor in 1996 and as an English solicitor in 1998.

Company

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development logo

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is an international financial institution which is owned by 61 countries and two intergovernmental institutions and which supports the development of market economies and democracies in countries from central Europe to central and the southern and eastern Mediterranean.

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