Selected Client Highlights of the Year We advised the British Library on its partnership with brightsolid online technology, owned by DC Thomson, for the digitisation of up to 40 million pages of the Library's newspaper archive. The contract was procured using the new Competitive Dialogue procedure. The British Library holds around 750 million paper pages and 370,000 reels of microfilm in its various repositories. The archive is of newspaper, magazine, journal, serial, periodical and other content dating back to the 16th century, much of it held by virtue of legal deposit legislation. Legal deposit helps to ensure that the nation's published output is collected systematically in order to preserve the material and make it available for future use. The British Library aims to make 80% of its "reader requests" for newspaper material available by means of digital surrogates by 2017.The digitisation project with brightsolid represents a significant step towards achieving that objective.A project of this scale requires particular project management skills and involves input from many different experts. With our breadth of expertise and, in this case, significant experience of both the cultural and media sectors, we were perfectly placed to undertake such multifaceted, complex work.Digitising the British Library"Mass digitisation unlocks the riches of our newspaper collections by making them available online to users across the UK and around the world; by making these pages fully searchable we will transform a research process which previously relied on scrolling through page after page of microfilm or print."Dame Lynne Brindley dbe, frsaChief Executive, British Library20Farrer & Co | 2010 ReviewFarrer & Co | 2010 Review21

We advised the Charities Property Fund on the structured acquisition from Tesco of its Tesco Extra store in Mansfield for £43 million. The innovative sale and leaseback terms allow Tesco considerable flexibility in return for a 20 year lease on a new store with a number of associated benefits for the Fund and for Tesco. Charities Property Fund snaps up Tesco siteSelected Client Highlights of the Year Over the last year we have advised several major law firms defending discrimination and whistleblowing claims, including one which was listed for a multi-week Employment Tribunal hearing where the claimant solicitor sought compensation of several million pounds. After exchange of witness statements, including compelling evidence from partners within the client firm, the matter was resolved to the satisfaction of the client with no adverse publicity.Firms are increasingly turning to us for help on such matters, where concerns about publicity are very real and are frequently used as a threat.Discrimination in the CityCity firms facing discrimination allegations"The team at Farrers was able to tackle this complex property deal by combining their commercial property acumen with their understanding of the Fund's objectives both as a common investment fund and as a charity. They had to overcome some key issues of constitutional and funding significance but we were delighted that they not only secured such a positive outcome by working so effectively with the deal's other advisers, but that it was all completed within a particularly challenging timeframe!"Harry de Ferry Foster Director of Investment, Cordea Savills LLP"Handling such situations requires an appreciation of reputational risk on the one hand, balanced by a commercial and robust approach on the other. Our reputation for discretion, combined with our experience of handling complex matters of this kind for law firms and others, means that we are well placed to advise the professions on how best to deal with such sensitive matters." William Dawson Head of Professional Practices GroupInnovative approach to sale and leasebacks on acquisition of Tesco Extra for Charities Property Fund22Farrer & Co | 2010 ReviewFarrer & Co | 2010 Review23