Retailer Dixons Carphone has added four firms to a revised legal roster, with DWF, RPC, Bristows and Carson McDowell winning spots.
The panel will run for four years following the expiration of its previous arrangement in March, which was the result of a 2016 review. The new additions join ten firms Dixons Carphone has kept panel relationships with, including Addleshaw Goddard, Clyde & Co, DAC Beachcroft, DLA Piper, Doyle Clayton, Fieldfisher, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Pinsent Masons, Shoosmiths, and Worthingtons.
The 14 firms will work across commercial, corporate, employment, litigation, regulatory, property and IP work. General counsel Nigel Paterson, who featured in the GC Powerlist 2019, told Legal Business the winning firms were assessed against technical expertise, financial value, retail market understanding and their abilities to offer added-value services.
‘We have maintained existing relationships with the firms we’ve worked with for many years, while also bringing on board the expertise of four firms,’ he added.
Paterson has responsibility for 47 lawyers across employment, corporate and commercial legal teams in London, Athens and Oslo. He joined Dixons Carphone a year after the £3.8bn merger between Dixons and Carphone Warehouse in 2014, which brought household names including Currys and PC World under one umbrella. A former senior lawyer at BT for over 14 years, he replaced interim joint-GC team of Helen Grantham and Tim Morris.
Dixons Carphone has been riding a turbulent couple of years of poor trading on the high street, and in 2018 announced the closure of 92 of its 700 stores.
