How we negotiate the IT services or software licensing related contracts has a significant impact on how IT meets “getting more done with less”...
Author - Tim Cowen
Since November 2002, Tim has been General Counsel for BT Global Services. Prior to that he was General Counsel of BT Ignite. He became General Counsel and Commercial Director in May 2004 to reflect his expanded responsibilities for the worldwide commercial contracts teams in BT. He is a member of the BT Global Services Executive Team, with director-level responsibility. He leads and manages Commercial Legal and Regulatory teams across 20 business locations in continental Europe, the US and Asia Pacific and is responsible for all law and regulation covering a wide variety of issues involving Commercial Contracts with customers and suppliers, Telecoms Law and Regulation litigation, etc. He has personally led the negotiations of some of BT's largest corporate transactions and commercial deals, in particular the outsourcing and ICT deals for which BT Global Services has become renowned. Tim originally joined BT in 1991 from private practice as a European lawyer in the Regulatory, Competition and Public Law Division. From 1994 to 1999, he was Head of European Law, responsible for all aspects of EU law and Telecommunications Regulation affecting the BT Group and was the Head of the Legal and Regulatory team dealing with deregulation and worldwide alliances. He was an integral member of the BT team involved in BT's first wave of international expansion, with much of the 1990s being spent on one deal or another; BT/MCI(1), FT/DT/Sprint, Global One, BT/MCI(2), BT/Viag Interkom, BT/Telfort, BT Banco Santander, BT/Telenordia, BT/AT&T and BT/AT&T Concert Unwind. From 1999 to 2000 he was promoted to Chief Counsel for Competition Law and Public Policy, managing teams lobbying on EU and UK legislation as well as leading transactional work on BT's major transactions and oppositions to deals and developments. He led the combined BT/AT&T team making representations on the Worldcom MCI/Sprint transaction one of the few decisions blocked by the European Commission; which changed the shape of the communications industry. He won the prestigious De Somogyi Award for European Law. From early work on deregulation and liberalisation of markets during the 1980's Tim has been involved in the International Chamber of Commerce working groups and is now BT's ICC Council member. Tim has been a member of the Ad-hoc Council for Europe for about 5 years and represents BT on the Competition Working Group at the European Round Table. He Chairs the Development Board of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL) and is a member of the CBI Competition Panel. In 2006 he was elected to the Board of the International Association of Commercial Contract Managers (IACCM). In 2007 Tim was elected to the Chairmanship of IACCM. He is regularly invited to speak at International conferences on management of commercial/legal departments, and issues relating to multinational trading. He has written several academic papers which include: - “Toward a Matrix Infrastructure”: Fordham Corporate Law Institute, 1995; “Computer Law”, Chris Reed Ed. 2000; “EEC Law and Information Technology”, “Information Technology and the Law”, 1990; “Applied Computer and Communications Law”, 1990; “Opening the Market for Data Transmission in the EC”, 1989.
