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• General counsel: James Atherton-Ham.
• Team headcount: four lawyers.

The relatively small in-house team at construction manufacturer and supplier Aggregate Industries is ‘incredibly cohesive and committed to achieving the best outcome for the company’, according to one law firm partner, while another adds: ‘This team is very commercial and very responsive. It works well with private practice lawyers.’

Led by GC James Atherton-Ham, who took over in 2011, the legal department has responsibility for managing the company’s compliance, secretarial and insurance issues across the UK and Europe, working across a variety of areas, including planning, estates and geological services. While much of its work is retained in-house, the team will instruct external counsel on matters including mining and minerals litigation work, property, corporate, environmental and regulatory advice.

Petra Billing, a commercial real estate partner at DLA Piper, comments: ‘Jenny Lowe, who heads up the in-house legal property team, is efficient, dynamic and an excellent communicator. Commercially, the team is very astute and focused, understands its sector well and, as a consequence, adds value to its business objectives and successes.’

There can be little doubt about the most challenging task this small team faced this year: the merger of Swiss parent Holcim with French manufacturer Lafarge to form the world’s largest cement company, which is still subject to regulatory clearance. Aggregate Industries is one asset that may have to be sold off in a bid to pacify EU competition watchdogs, which could usher in different international reporting requirements for the team.

p>Other recent key mandates included a significant professional negligence action against a former law firm over its failure to register a renewal option of a lease.

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• General counsel: Carol Hui.
• Team headcount: 16 lawyers.

Considered as much a business adviser as a legal one, Heathrow Airport Holdings GC Carol Hui is praised for her team’s ‘clear strategic focus’ and for navigating the company through complex transactional and regulatory issues, while reducing reliance on external legal support.

Since being taken private in a consortium led by Spain’s Ferrovial in a £10.3bn deal in 2006, the company has been enmeshed in sustained controversy regarding UK airport expansion, which has led to a prolonged legal tussle with competition authorities. Hui has been heavily involved with Heathrow’s bid to gain support for a third runway, a plan which would raise its capacity from 480,000 flights a year to a projected estimate of 740,000.

Former Slaughter and May lawyer Hui has also pushed through a substantive upgrade of a legal team that was underweight and historically focused on handling relatively low-level property matters. The team now includes recommended counsel Catherine Ledger, head of legal for operations, corporate and litigation, and Irina Janakievska, senior counsel for corporate and finance, who formed part of Hui’s team in the October 2014 sale of Aberdeen International Airport, Glasgow Airport and Southampton Airport to a consortium formed by Ferrovial and Macquarie Group for £1.05bn.

Prior to Hui’s arrival, BAA did not have a formalised roster of advisers. Having revamped the department within months, Hui effectively reduced reliance on external lawyers and keeps as much as 70% of work in-house. Cost-effective initiatives introduced for panel firms include volume rebates, while Hui has also managed to resource the department with six trainees, who are all provided by advisers. She further built up the legal function to include commercial, litigation, regulation and compliance support capabilities, demonstrating her ability to run a small team with wide responsibility, despite the regulatory complexities and multibillion-pound revenue of the company.

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