There’s a shake-up coming to the legal department at SABMiller as the beverage maker gears up for its October merger with Anheuser-Busch InBev.
A report is out from the Global Legal Post that a raft of in-house lawyers are going to be out of the job.
A spokesman for SABMiller declined to comment, but the Global Legal Post says that up to 35 lawyers will be let go.
Changes at the management level of both beverage companies’ in-house law departments have previously been reported: SABMiller general counsel John Davidson is on-the-out , while Sabine Chalmers, the top lawyer at AB InBev will assume the position of chief legal and corporate affairs officer in the newly merged company.
Per the Global Legal Post:
Senior lawyers have already been notified of the lay-offs by Mr Davidson himself, though consultations are still ongoing and staff won’t be formally notified of the management’s decision until the middle of next month. SABMiller company secretary and deputy general counsel Stephen Shapiro has already been confirmed as one of those affected by the lay-offs, as well as deputy GC for M&A Stephen Jones and deputy GC for regulatory and industry affairs John Fraser.
We reached out to Chalmers, who spoke at our 2015 Big Law Business Summit, as well as AB InBev’s media relations team. We’ll update this post if we hear back.
Know anything about the layoffs? Email us at BigLawBusiness@bna.com.
To read more articles log in.
Learn more about a Bloomberg Law subscription.