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publicado el 02 de OCTUBRE de 2009

SJ Berwin advises SITA on $2 billion deal with Orange Business Services for innovative communication services to the air transport industry

SJ Berwin today announced that it has advised SITA, the specialist in air transport communications and IT solutions, on a seven year deal, valued in excess of $2 billion, to broaden SITA’s existing partnership with Orange Business Services. The new deal, which SITA CEO Francesco Violante described as “of major strategic importance for the smooth functioning of an industry which is now hugely reliant on communications for its day-to-day operations”, builds on the past successful collaboration of SITA and Orange Business Services. Within its broad product and solutions portfolio, SITA will continue to provide an extensive range of Orange Business Services’ communications services to the world’s airlines, airports and other air industry participants, supplemented by new joint SITA-Orange Business Services innovation and accelerated development of enhanced convergence and real-time business services to meet evolving industry needs, including operational efficiency and cost-optimisation. SJ Berwin provided dedicated senior resources as part of a single core SITA Legal team, which supported the multi-disciplinary SITA project team from an initial strategic analysis of business requirements in October 2008, to completion in July 2009, with negotiations in Geneva, Paris and London. SITA General Counsel, David Greaves and SJ Berwin partner David Meredith joined the project leadership team. SITA Legal Director, Stephen Baird, headed the project legal team and SJ Berwin senior associates Jason Nield and Andrew Sutherland each supported individual negotiations workstreams. David Meredith commented: "The SITA/Orange Business Services strategic relationship is one of the world’s most significant communications services partnerships, and the only one with a truly global footprint. It is, by any measure, a great piece of work for any adviser to work on.” David Greaves said: “The legal and commercial expertise of this SJ Berwin team gave us real strength in depth exactly where we needed it. They have years of experience of leading in-house legal teams themselves, so they very quickly understand the commercial objectives and can work directly with the business. This vitally contributes to the quality and efficiency of service that we as a legal team can give our clients when we’re resourcing something of this scale, while the inherent self-sufficiency of the lawyers also keeps the legal spend to a minimum.”