John Bennett > Eversheds Sutherland (International) LLP > Leeds, England > Lawyer Profile

John Bennett

+44 113 200 4460 johnbennett@eversheds.com

Work Department

John joined Eversheds in 1993, having previously worked across a variety of sectors including industry, private practice, central and local government. During that time he built up an expertise in contracting and procurement both in the UK and across Europe. His work for Eversheds is in devising and delivering innovative commercial solutions for public bodies particularly in the field of contractual arrangements between the public and private sectors.

He is a nationally-known expert in all aspects of public sector contracting particularly EC public procurement, and PPP arrangements. He has co-written many of the leading encyclopaedias on procurement, local authority trading, and regularly speaks on these topics.

John's particular area of expertise is in the development of new forms of major procurement exercises. He devised the procurement strategy for the first major contract on the Olympic Games and has many other "firsts" to his career (e.g. led the team which delivered the first ever PFI project in local government and the teams which delivered the two ICT PFI pathfinder projects).

Recent work:

• Major shared services project jointly procured by local authority and health authorities using joint venture trading vehicle
• Setting up in-house (Teckal) and trading companies for local authority
• Advising on trading strategies for local authority commercial arm

John has worked as a government advisor to the strategic partnership taskforce, devising shared service models for local government and to the Audit Commission on local authority trading.

Since 2008 he has worked part-time for Eversheds and part-time at York University, where he has developed a Master's course in International Corporate and Commercial Law.

Position

Consultant