UK Government Pays Magic Circle Firm Over £1M in 2019 for Brexit Training
The firm has been brought in to help train civil servants and trade negotiators to prepare for a "post-Brexit world".
September 13, 2019 at 10:30 AM
3 minute read
The Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) has paid out just over £1.5 million ($1.9 million) to Linklaters in return for Brexit-related training so far in 2019.
According to a spokesperson at the FCO, the department brought in the Magic Circle firm to help expand its trade policy training programme "ahead of leaving the EU".
"Linklaters won the open tender to provide part of this training and to date, over 450 civil servants from 16 government departments have taken part," the spokesperson added.
In total, Linklaters has received £1,517,075 for training services across five of the last seven months this year, with the firm receiving more than half a million in January alone, according to monthly spending data released by the FCO.
According to a person at Linklaters, the firm has been working with the FCO to train civil servants for more than two and a half years, the aim being to "help prepare the civil service to deliver free trade agreements for the U.K. in a post-Brexit world".
"Our programmes have included sessions designed specifically for chief negotiators, sector and chapter leads for future trade agreements, with training provided by highly experienced trade and negotiation experts from different jurisdictions, a Linklaters spokesperson told Legal Week. "In addition, we are providing ongoing deep-dive training on key subject negotiation areas, with intensive policy and drafting sessions."
In 2018, the firm won a similar £250,000 ($311,500) contract from the FCO to help assist its Trade Policy and Negotiations Faculty with its "practitioner programme", which is used to train civil servants across all government departments.
"We provided practitioner courses for an additional 100+ civil servants across multiple government departments to help, alongside the diplomatic academy, to ensure U.K. civil servants are fully prepared," the firm spokesperson said.
The U.K.'s current foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, who was appointed after the contract was struck, previously trained and qualified at Linklaters in 2000.
Linklaters is one of just a handful of firms that sit on both the government's general legal services panel and the finance and complex legal services panel. Earlier this month, it was announced that the two panels would be amalgamated into one £400 million ($498.4 million) panel.
Last month, Herbert Smith Freehills said it would extend its role advising an independent MP-led commission on the legal issues surrounding the Irish backstop – one of the central concerns of the Brexit process.
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