Caroline Ramsay

TLT co-bid with two other leading firms in the field, US firm McDermott Will & Emery and Canada’s Borden Ladner Gervais.

The consortium, named Artis, is appointed to both panel lots – lot 1 (international trade disputes) and lot 2 (international trade negotiations) – demonstrating the firms’ unique combined offering.

Together, the consortium offers the UK government access to exceptional understanding and experience in international trade law, backed by a substantial UK presence and extensive experience in advising central government across a multitude of UK and EU law matters.

The new panel is the UK government’s default route for all new trade law work, with an indicative value of £115m across four years.

The TLT team will be led by partner Caroline Ramsay, an EU and trade law expert who joined TLT in 2019 and who has years of experience advising various UK government departments.

The McDermott Will & Emery team will be led by partner Joanne Osendarp, an expert and co-chair of the firm’s international trade group. She has extensive experience advising the various sovereign governments, including Canada, on international trade matters, including WTO disputes and FTA negotiations.

Borden Ladner Gervais’ team will be led by partner Matthew Kronby, who has 25 years’ experience representing governments in high profile trade disputes and negotiations, including as head of the Government of Canada’s Trade Law Bureau from 2009-2012, as Canada’s chief legal counsel in the negotiation of the CETA with the EU, and in numerous WTO and NAFTA proceedings.

Ms Ramsay, said: “We are absolutely delighted to have been appointed to this panel, which will allow us to continue our close working relationship with the UK government and to also introduce our fantastic consortium partners.

“The consortium is born out of a shared culture of collaboration and commitment to exceptional client service. We wanted to offer something different – access to genuine leaders in the field of international trade law combined with TLT’s depth of experience working with the UK government, not just on trade related issues such as subsidy control, but across a wide variety of UK legal matters.

“At TLT, we pride ourselves on the way we can integrate with our client’s own team to seamlessly deliver expert legal advice in a way that makes it feel like an ‘in-house’ service. This appointment shows we can internationalise that model by collaborating effectively with firms globally to meet our clients’ needs.”