Shell news, updates and analysis | Page 1 of 3

Following its £47bn takeover of BG Group, Shell has appointed its ‘transitional’ GC James Hine as associate general counsel (GC) for Brazil, a region with one of the most prized oil plays in the world.

The energy major is continuing its transfer of BG’s in-house lawyers into Shell’s near 1,000 strong legal unit with redundancies ongoing.

Hine becomes associate general counsel for upstream Brazil and Latin America, with managing counsel upstream and head of legal Brazil Silvio Rodrigues reporting to him.

Speaking to Legal Business, Shell’s executive vice president and GC for the upstream division, Tom Melbye Eide, said: ‘We have started country by country, asset by asset, to transfer BG lawyers into Shell. That is being executed as we speak. There has been a period of integration which started in February. There was a separate team on integration involved and Hine was part of that.

He added: ‘The legal department was kept intact up until now. Gradually we are mapping our target operating model. The mapping process is soon to be finalised.’

Eide (pictured) said there are no exact figures at present on how many lawyers are expected to be cut and the mapping process ‘follows Shell’s operating model so it’s just a question of size to fit the new efforts.’

‘We’re still in the process so we don’t have any numbers. There’s a voluntary severance process in Shell and BG… there’s a target operating model. By the end of this year there’ll be greater clarity.’

In March Shell started a review of its external legal advisers after finalising the takeover and begun overhauling its respective legal divisions.

Eide was officially appointed to his role at the time. He now reports to Shell legal director Donny Ching and sits on the management team for the upstream business.

Hine was appointed ‘transitional’ GC and tasked to lead the changeover of BG’s legal team into Shell which is expected to be finalised in the coming weeks. The oil giant’s 980 strong legal team is split over 45 countries using over 100 firms. At the time of the takeover’s announcement, BG Group housed 85 lawyers.

In April Shell slashed its global panel from 11 firms to just six, with Eversheds and Reed Smith the chosen newcomers while Clifford Chance, Allen & Overy, Baker & McKenzie and Norton Rose Fulbright were reappointed.

Other legal teams facing job cuts as a result of merger activity include SABMiller, which could make up to 35 staff in the UK-based legal team redundant after its £79bn takeover by Anheuser-Busch InBev.

sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk

Read more on the Shell in-house team in this year’s GC Powerlist.

Royal Dutch Shell has announced its target operating model after finalising its £35bn takeover of BG Group in February, and indicated it will reduce the amount of project lawyers it has due to a drop-off in demand.

The announcement, which was made last week, will kick off a discussion with in-house lawyers about what they want to do in the future, with the oil giant offering employees a voluntary severance package.

Shell currently has 650 lawyers in its in-house team, while BG’s legal team consists of 140 people – of which approximately 120 are legally qualified. According to Shell’s legal director Donny Ching, conversations are currently ongoing regarding how many of BG’s lawyers will join Shell’s legal team.

Speaking to Legal Business, Ching (pictured) said: ‘Generally there is quite a strong acknowledgement amongst my executive team that we do need to preserve a very strong group of in-house capability. In truth we are not reducing that many numbers. We are reducing some numbers purely in response to the drop off in business demand. We are not doing as many projects now because of affordability issues and as a result of that it allows us to reduce the number of project lawyers.’

Last month Shell announced that it was closing three UK offices, including BG’s headquarters in Reading, with the 800 staff there being offered the chance to move to Shell’s London base. A voluntary redundancy plan is ongoing to cut a total of 10,300 jobs across the merged group, with 7,500 from the original the original Shell business and another 2,800 following the takeover of BG.

As part of the restructuring, BG’s general counsel (GC) Tom Melbye Eide was officially appointed to the role of executive vice president and GC for the upstream business at Shell in February. He now reports to Ching and sits on the management team for the upstream business.

Meanwhile, BG has appointed a ‘transitional’ chief executive, who has a management team tasked with leading the transition of the BG operations. With this in mind, Shell lawyer James Hine has been appointed transitional GC, leading the changeover of BG’s legal team into Shell.

Also this week, this publication revealed that Shell was preparing to open its own offshore legal centre to service the oil giant’s global operations. A team reporting to Ching, is currently scouting possible locations and considering headcount numbers for the centre, with a brief to come back by autumn.

A mixture of non-qualified and qualified lawyers will be doing more high-end work as well as the traditional back office work which is more typically suited to offshore centres. Potential locations for the centre will ultimately depend on whether Shell can recruit the right quality people in a particular area.

The oil giant has also slashed its global panel from 11 firms to just six, with Eversheds and Reed Smith newcomers to the panel. Clifford Chance, Allen & Overy, Baker & McKenzie and Norton Rose Fulbright were reappointed.

Dentons, Simmons & Simmons, CMS Cameron McKenna, Debevoise & Plimpton, Holman Fenwick Willan, King & Spalding and Linklaters are among those not named on the multinational oil and gas firm’s global panel.

kathryn.mccann@legalease.co.uk