Shoosmiths advises Cellnex in telecoms service deal for Brighton mainline

Shoosmiths LLP has advised Cellnex, the leading operator of wireless telecommunications and broadcasting infrastructures throughout Europe and Scandinavia and the UK’s largest and fastest-growing independent owner and operator of wireless telecoms, on its award of the 25-year concessionary contract from Network Rail to provide improved, uninterrupted cellular internet, mobile reception and fibre services along the Brighton Mainline route.

Cellnex UK will provide the infrastructure to deliver continuous mobile connectivity from London Victoria and London Bridge stations on the full 51-mile length of Brighton mainline and branch lines serving around 300,000 passengers every day. The service will provide improved, stable, coverage and capacity for the UK Mobile Network Operators benefiting passengers as well as line-side local communities.

Telecoms is a key sector focus for Shoosmiths, and the telecoms team contains more than ten partners, supported by a large pool of lawyers across the firm’s national footprint. Working closely alongside the Cellnex international project and legal team, the transaction required seamless cross-sector working, drawing on Shoosmiths’ depth of expertise across tech procurement, infrastructure, telecoms and regulatory as well as the firm’s experience in supporting major public procurement projects.

Shoosmiths also deployed its latest in-house original LegalTech suite of products and systems, developed jointly with specialist tech and software companies, such as its live working platform and automated/AI document review tools supporting complex document management to deal with the scale of the project. Shoosmiths team was led by Richard Millington, partner in the firm’s Technology Media and Telecoms group.

Mick Goulding, Head of Commercial, Cellnex UK, said: “The collaboration across several complex disciplines and the legal advice from Shoosmiths was an essential element in getting this deal across the line. Richard and his team provided a very good and comprehensive service.”

Delivery of that comprehensive cross sector service required the involvement of key specialists in the fields of rail focussed construction (Natalie Maye), electronic communications code and real estate (Gillian Wood), infrastructure (James Wood-Robertson), public procurement (Jen Clarke), technology procurement (Alex Kirkhope) and IT system integration (Craig Armstrong). The team was ably assisted by an associate group that included Rachel Whalebone, Emily Ablitt, Heather Stark and trainee Josh Dye.