Cutting legal budgets is no mean feat. So Legal Week’s report (9 December) that British American Tobacco has slashed its annual legal bill by around £25m, thanks largely to a new IT system, will have brought nods of approval from corporate counsel around the country.

No doubt those same senior in-house lawyers will be keeping a close eye on General Electric’s (GE’s) efforts to cut its UK spending through the controversial deployment of online auctions.