Elizabeth Williams > Gowling WLG > Birmingham, England > Lawyer Profile

Elizabeth Williams

+44 (0)121 393 0760 elizabeth.williams@gowlingwlg.com

Work Department

Aviation, Aerospace & Defence; Projects

Position

Partner

Career

Elizabeth Williams is a commercial lawyer who helps clients to deliver complex projects (including PFI and/or PPP) across a range of sectors including aerospace and defence, technology and infrastructure. As part of her work in the defence sector, she is a specialist in the Defence Reform Act 2014.

Elizabeth specialises in providing advice to public authorities and private sector clients on PFI/PPP projects and other complex commercial and commercial outsourcing contracts. She has excellent organisational skills and strong experience of negotiating multi-party negotiations and managing complex contract completions. She helps clients to structure their projects in a way to minimise the risks and achieve their objectives, whether that is cost saving, changing or acquiring services or transferring/mitigating risk.

Experience

• The Ministry of Defence on a range of projects including:
  • Project Marshall: a £1.6bn outsourcing of the military air traffic control system in the UK, the Falkland Islands and Cyprus.
  • The Submarine Enterprise Performance Programme: Elizabeth provided drafting and participated in negotiations.
  • Defence Estates Project: advising on the Facilities Management Contract, National Housing Prime Contract and Training Estates Contract. This involved the drafting and amendments of NEC3 for the purposes of the contract.
• A public sector client on a variety of cyber security projects in the information assurance arena. Elizabeth drafted the commercial contracts, providing commercial advice and analysis on a range of issues.
• Ameyon its successful bid for the £2.8 billion Sheffield Highways PFI, procured under competitive dialogue, and more recently on its deed of variation to address a contract variation to the existing PFI Agreement.
• Herefordshire Tertiary Education Trust on the formation of a new technology institute which involves novel arrangements requiring innovative advice and options analysis producing recommendations. Elizabeth co-ordinates resource while providing commercial advice and bringing problem-solving skills to the project.
• Lovell Respond as FM sub-contractor on various facilities management Contractor PFI bids.
• The Community Lighting Partnerships on the £30 million Blackpool street lighting/traffic signals PFI and £33 million Oldham street lighting PFI. Elizabeth assisted on the project finance side of both deals and led the conditions precedents in the run up to financial close.
• Airwave on its bid for the Emergency Services Network procurement recently launched by the Home Office. Elizabeth was the lead associate on this matter involved in the flow-down of the sub-contract arrangements.
• London Underground – Tottenham Hale Providing advice on arrangements between London Underground Limited and Network Rail relating to the redevelopment of Tottenham Hale station.
• Advising BNP Paribas and HSBC on the US$50 million cross-border financing in Egypt.
• Gloucestershire County Council on its £40 million Community Safety PFI project, to provide four new fire stations and a life skills centre, procured using Competitive Dialogue.
• Bristol City Council on its £30 million leisure PFI procured under Competitive Dialogue. Elizabeth advised on the Project Agreement and derogations, co-ordinating internal specialists, external financial and technical advisors to achieve financial close.
• Advising London Borough of Croydon on an outsourcing contract which will facilitate the transfer of Croydon’s care services to an external private sector provider.
• Department of Health’s Independent Sector Treatment Centre programme. As part of the core project team advising on the roll out of 32 Equitable Access projects in Manchester for Commissioning Based Services (CBS) as part of the Equitable Access in Primary Care Programme for the Department of He…

Languages

English, French