Pinsent Masons head of banking and finance litigation Michael Issacs, has been seconded to Barclays’ litigation and investigations team, led by Stephanie Pagni. The move comes as the bank is undergoing a panel view.
Issacs, who joined Pinsents in 2013 from Addleshaw Goddard, is the firm’s relationship partner for Barclays. He has prior experience as a lawyer in the bank, having completed an extended partner secondment in the global retail and commercial bank litigation team for six months in 2009. He worked under Jonathan Peddie and Pagni in Canary Wharf during this time. According to Issacs’ Linkedin profile, this allowed him to ‘experience first-hand, the variety and complexity of daily demands placed upon the Bank’s in-house team.’
At Pinsents, Issacs helps clients to avoid and deal with problems in retail, commercial and wealth banking, including operational issues, domestic and commercial lending and fraud.
Last month it emerged that Barclays has put a ban on its 600 lawyers accepting corporate hospitality, as it reviews its legal panel which is worth around £100m a year to law firms.
In a missive from Barclays’ general counsel’s office, lawyers were told that the ban has been put in place to ensure a fair evaluation of law firms during the course of the review.
Barclays asked that its law firms submit details of corporate hospitality spending for the first time in 2011 as part of a previous review. The bank said at the time that this was to prevent breaches of the UK Bribery Act, which came into force that year.
This current review will see law firms compete for places on Barclays’ legal panel for the next two years. It is being led by Stéphanie Hamon, the bank’s head of commercial management, who was drafted in last December to run the procurement process.
kathryn.mccann@legalease.co.uk
