Name: Bristows
Price range: $$$

We advise on complex, strategic global outsourcing projects for some of the most sophisticated users of services across the full range of business processes. We also advise leading suppliers on outsourcing bid support and customer negotiations. Our specialist lawyers are experienced in all the varied elements of outsourcing including procurement strategies, pricing, service level agreements, TUPE, corporate, tax and property issues.

Our experienced team has the capacity, technical understanding and commercial expertise to advise and guide you efficiently through all stages of any outsourcing project. From systems integration and multi-sourcing, to digital transformation and global business services, we regularly work on some of the highest-profile IT and BPO projects in the market.

On the customer side, we work with clients in a wide range of sectors including life sciences, financial services, energy, retail and the public sector. We help them throughout the project lifecycle, from structuring the deal and the procurement process, to contract negotiation, transition and implementation. During the life of the deal, we’re often called upon to advise on contract management issues, while towards the end of the term we regularly assist with re-procurement and exit planning strategies.

We act for several top-tier outsourcing suppliers. We provide bid support, including responses to RFPs, risk analyses on customer contracts, and lead customer negotiations. We quickly get up-to-speed with their risk management approach so we can embed ourselves within the bid team and advise in our clients’ full legal and business context.

We also deal with projects which are delayed or when there are disputes about the required scope, quality and standards. We help clients to identify and manage risks early, to anticipate change and to make the most of their contractual positions, including through renegotiation or formal legal action. We are well versed in helping clients manage outsourcing disputes alongside our expert technology disputes team.

From our London office we often work with our global network of experts to provide a seamless service on international outsourcing projects. We lead global deals on behalf of clients, project managing and integrating specific advice from outsourcing experts in the relevant jurisdictions, ensuring a globally-compliant roll-out in key areas like HR and TUPE, data privacy and sector-specific regulations that apply to outsourcing. On global outsourcing projects, we offer our clients the convenience of ‘one firm’ – one set of instructions, one conflict check and one invoice.

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Experience

We advised a global financial services business on multiple business critical IT and outsourcing deals, many of which were material outsourcing transactions where we achieved favourable positions for our client and its regulators.

Most recently, we advised on the re-baselining and renegotiation of its existing BPO and ITO deals with two top-tier global vendors. We were able to take a pragmatic approach to these renegotiations, retaining the existing functional relationships and what had been working well, while focusing discussions on improving those aspects that could be improved, such as access to improvement, innovation and enhanced levels of service.

Each project involved careful analysis of the regulatory context – both in terms of the financial services regulatory and data privacy regulatory compliance and across the world.

Our client was able to call on us not only for legal advice and negotiation but also to support the life-cycle of these complex deals including counselling on procurement strategies and regulatory compliance procedures and using our in-house tools to enable swift and cost-effective reporting to CIO and board level stakeholders.

We regularly advise our long-standing client, a leading global IT and outsourcing provider, on some of its largest deals and disputes.

In particular, we have helped on multi-year outsourcing programmes for the design, build and running of banking systems, advising on complex IP, IT, data and regulatory issues. Following these deals, our team is regularly called upon to assist with contract management, whether that is the latest change control note or re-aligning the contract following an event or issue.

We have also co-ordinated multi-jurisdictional advice on a £1billion global contact centre outsourcing bid to a large energy company involving cutting-edge robotic process automation technology.

We advised a global B2C automotive parts manufacturer on a transformational business process outsourcing project.

We guided the RFP strategy and contracting process from end to end, drafting and negotiating a robust agreement to govern the global relationship. We also worked with our data protection and employment experts to manage compliance with jurisdiction-specific regulatory and HR requirements. Our lawyers were able to bring to bear their extensive experience in both procuring and delivering BPO projects when stress-testing the pricing models and drafting the service descriptions, refining the commercial model, and ensuring our client benefitted from strong contractual commitments to the efficiencies and service improvements which underpinned the business case.

We helped our client, a leading enterprise software vendor, to undertake their first ever large scale IT outsourcing that saw them conclude a deal with a top-tier supplier to set up offshore development centres in India and Mexico.

We advised our client from start to finish, notably on their deal structuring, service model descriptions and charging mechanisms as well as of course all legal aspects. A key issue was knowledge transfer and knowledge protection as the vendor’s team would be gaining in depth knowledge of our client’s key tools (that it itself licences to its customers). Although the deal was led out of the US, our client still came to us to deliver it because of our deep knowledge of the key ITO vendors and ability to leverage that knowledge to drive a hard but fair bargain swiftly and cost-effectively.

We assisted a government department on a series of linked outsourcing projects related to the transformation and modernisation of key aspects of the UK’s defence technology infrastructure.

Initially, we helped design a regulated public procurement for the agile technology development services required to develop the new systems, then continued to advise on further procurements for the support and hosting of the new system. Our in-depth knowledge of the technology, marketplace and background to this project has proven invaluable to our client, our team proving instrumental in helping to procure these systems and services in an efficient and timely manner and in a way that was compliant with procurement regulations.

Key to our role was our ability to share our expertise in project management, deal structuring and agile software development to enable the client team to manage the process and ensure it really understood the various bidders’ proposals.

Related resources

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What others say

“The firm is very responsive and flexible in order to adapt to client priorities.”
Chambers & Partners 2025

“Bristows is our go-to firm for complex and sophisticated matters. It has first-rate capability across the board.”
Chambers & Partners 2025

“The lawyers have a deep knowledge of the technology market and can handle complex matters confidently and with an ability to communicate simply with a range of stakeholders.”
Chambers & Partners 2025

“Pragmatic approach to support the client needs.”
Legal 500 2025

“They don’t simply bill for the hours they’ve worked. Instead, they evaluate whether those hours were reasonable and whether we, as their client, have derived sufficient value from them. If they feel that the value delivered doesn’t align with the hours billed, they’re more than willing to adjust the fee to ensure our satisfaction.”
Legal 500 2025

“They possess an excellent understanding of our industry, and technology in particular, which sets them apart. While being a full-service law firm, they also embody the personalised attention and specialised expertise typically associated with boutique firms.”
Legal 500 2025

“Highly responsive, with deep expertise in AI and the multiple complex product areas that intersect in counselling AI products.”
Legal 500 2025

“Professional, always available, knowledgeable, and skilled.”
Legal 500 2025

“The team have both the resources and skills necessary to manage substantial litigation and arbitration, approaching such disputes with good humour, hard work, and creativity.”
Legal 500 2025

“Their IT and telecoms team is a market leader. Their market experience is exceptional across the board, everyone’s input is encouraged and valued such that clients feel involved, but looked after.”
Legal 500 2025

“They have a clear understanding of what our business wants to achieve and that underpins all their advice. They know when to involve the business stakeholders and are able to tailor their approach to that audience and suggest solutions that take key business drivers into account.”
Chambers and Partners 2024

“Bristows has a comprehensive IT practice with powerful resources for major commercial transactions and complex litigation. It advises many of the world’s leading technology companies, and also sophisticated blue-chip buyers of IT services. It is especially adept at providing counsel on the most current and cutting-edge issues in the technology space. Bristows houses experienced advisers on digital advertising and cloud computing matters.”
Chambers and Partners 2024

“Bristows is our go-to firm for any complex or high-value technology work. The team is accessible, responsive and incredibly knowledgeable and a pleasure to work with.”
Legal 500 2024

“Excellent legal skills, combined with a good sector knowledge and a hands-on approach, make Bristows a very useful resource.”
Chambers and Partners 2023

“Commercial awareness is definitely one of Bristows’ strong points. Team members’ prior in-house experience shows. It is great to receive advice that is commercially balanced and easily understood by all functions of our business.”
Chambers and Partners 2023

“Even in the event the requests were a bit outside of telecom regulations, the firm were able to assist with providing an exhaustive response to all enquiries. They always responded within the quoted review time and usually exceeded expectations.”
Chambers and Partners 2023

“All team members have very deep experience in different fields of expertise. They understand what kind of level of response a client needs before wasting money on long reports, which is very much appreciated. On top of this, they provide updates on UK case law that are very helpful.”
Chambers and Partners 2023

“Their advice is always practical, realistic and adaptable.”
Chambers and Partners 2023

“Bristows have an incredible depth and breadth of experience.”
Chambers and Partners 2023

“Bristows has a comprehensive IT practice with powerful resources for major commercial transactions and complex litigation. It advises many of the world’s leading technology companies, and also sophisticated blue-chip buyers of IT services. It is especially adept at providing counsel on the most current and cutting-edge issues in the technology space.”
Chambers and Partners 2023

“They are technically very strong, giving us great confidence in their advice.”
Chambers and Partners 2023

“The Bristows reputation management team is small but experienced and has the advantage of being able to offer cross-expertise to other Bristows specialist departments such as data protection, copyright and IT generally. In the internet age that is very valuable.”

Legal 500 2023

“Exceptional practice, well motivated, and proactive.”
Legal 500 2023

“Excellent knowledge in the life sciences and technology space. The team is reliable and strong at all levels. I enjoy working with the team.”
Legal 500 2023

“Bristows LLP’s ‘excellent knowledge of the life sciences and technology space’ attracts a high-profile roster of clients including Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and Facebook.”
Legal 500 2023

“They’re incredibly practical, contextually astute and do an excellent job educating and thinking about complicated legal situations in a way that allows for forward momentum.”
Chambers and Partners 2022

“Bristows are a class act through and through, a quality firm providing in-depth coverage.”
Chambers and Partners 2022

“We like to be able to take them into complex situations where they can be practical, and we like that they’re adaptable.”
Chambers and Partners 2022

“Their sector experience is really broad and deep.”
Chambers and Partners 2022

“I feel like we get a very personal service from them, they reach out to me and they always provide all the information.”
Chambers and Partners 2022

Toby Crick

Vik Khurana

Chris Holder

Adrian Sim

Experience

Related resources

What others say

Recent rankings and awards

Information Technology & Outsourcing - Band 1

Information Technology and Outsourcing - Band 1

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