15 July 2002
The Lawyer
Andersen Legal snubs Deloitte for E&Y merger
In a move that will shock the Italian market, the legal partners of Andersen's now defunct Italian practice have broken off their merger plans with Deloitte & Touche in favour of a deal with big five rival Ernst & Young (E&Y)
ASA clamps down on Taylor & Emmet advert
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld a complaint about Sheffield-based personal injury firm Taylor & Emmet
Avma hires chief executive replacement
Action for Victims of Medical Accidents (Avma) has appointed Peter Walsh as its chief executive
Bird & Bird launches Düsseldorf practice
Bird & Bird has launched its first German office with eight partners from the Düsseldorf office of Andersen Luther
Blandy & Blandy
After hundreds of years of experience, Blandys is unfazed by City competition
Book of the night
While perusing the shelves in his local bookshop recently, Tulkinghorn came across a little-known tome entitled The Comfort of Sin: Prostitutes and Prostitution in the 1990s. What is perhaps more surprising is that the author, writing under the pseudonym of Richard Goodall, is actually a partner at Radcliffes Le Brasseur. Not hitherto known as a particularly saucy firm, Tulkinghorn investigated further, wondering whether this might be a book he would have to keep hidden from Mrs Tulkinghorn'
Browne Jacobson's turnover tops £20m
Nottingham-based Browne Jacobson has continued last year's growth with its turnover this year reaching £20.7m, up 11 per cent from last year's £18.7m
Camerons and Linklaters lose partners to Minters' Asian drive
Australian firm Minter Ellison has raided Linklaters and CMS Cameron McKenna in a bid to boost its Asian capacity
CC's West Coast drive lures Brobeck lawyers
Clifford Chance has continued to plunder Brobeck Phleger & Harrison, poaching associates, clients and support staff to boost its budding West Coast offices
Children's champ
The NSPCC's Barbara Esam's remit of fighting for youngsters who fall foul of the law has helped keep her in the UK for twenty seven years longer than intended. Brendan Malkin reports
Clifford Chance Luddites delay governance vote
Technophobic Clifford Chance partners have been blamed for a hold-up in the voting of the firm's governance review
Competitive streak
McDermott's London competition partner Scott Megregian arrived from the US to fill a gap, but as Kathryn Hobbs discovers, he's more than just a patch-up job
Corporate
When the bottom fell out of the public M&A market last year, hot shot corporate lawyers wished they could be in private equity. However, the wishing fairy has not been kind to firms which have tried to get into the transactional side of the sector.
DEAL OF THE WEEK - TELEWEST
Norton Rose edged aside as CIBC smiles on A&O
Deals summary
Herbert Smith (Stephen Wisking, Jonathan Scott), has obtained European Commission merger clearance for Andersen's UK merger with Deloitte & Touche. The deal, which was entered into on 9 April 2002, was cleared by the commission on 1 July 2002.
Deals summary
Baker Botts advised Pride Offshore, a subsidiary of Pride International, on a $250m (£163m) syndicated secured revolving credit facility. Agent bank and lender Crédit Lyonnais advised by Herbert Smith (Jason Fox) and Bracewell & Paterson (Mark Evans, Richard Rice).
Deals summary
Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw (Iain Thomas) advised the Royal Bank of Scotland hotel and leisure team in relation to a facility (amount undisclosed) to Peel Hotels to fund the acquisition of the Avon George Hotel in Bristol and the George Hotel in Wallingford, and on the refinancing of existing borrowings secured on other hotels. Linklaters ...
Definitely maybe
Claims for loss of chance can often stick in the throat, so Angus Turner asks: why settle a less than certain claim?
Dewey loses NY team to Stroock
Dewey Ballantine has lost an eight-lawyer insolvency and restructuring team to Stroock & Stroock & Lavan in New York
Donahue left with one office after double closure
Donahue, the Ernst & Young-tied firm in Canada, has decided to close two of its three offices
E&Y wins defunct firm's managing partner
Ernst & Young has appointed former Andersen Legal worldwide managing partner Patrick Bignon to the role of global vice chair for law
Eversheds leads UK's largest ever greenfield development
Eversheds is advising the consortium behind the country's largest greenfield development. The consortium has now agreed a long-awaited deal with software company Sage and has just signed an innovative electricity agreement with Scottish and Southern Energy. Sage will take an initial 31,590 square metres at the scheme, with an option to expand its presence to 53,420 square metres.Eversheds' Birmingham ...
Ex-Andersen Legal chief joins BLP
Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) has hired Andersen Legal's former head of knowledge management Jonathan Mendelow
Freize suckers
Not content with a good position in last week's UK M&A rankings, Macfarlanes has also set out to be the UK's most cultured firm. Dominating an entire wall in one of the firm's labyrinthine corridors is a huge frieze comprised of individually sculpted squares. The work is so intricate, Tulkinghorn understands that certain partners have taken to spending hours at a time staring at ...
Halliwells appoints new corporate chief
Halliwell Landau has appointed corporate and banking partner John Whatnall as its new head of corporate
Hamlins wins SFLA lawyer for family push
Hamlins has appointed former chairman of the Solicitors Family Law Association (SFLA) Rosemary Carter (left) to head the firm's family law department
Hardwicke in marriage talks with 22 Old Bldgs
Multidisciplinary set Hardwicke Building is in merger talks with Benet Hytner QC's 22 Old Buildings
Hart Brown senior partner takes retirement
Hart Brown senior partner Jonathan Hawke has retired after 20 years at the firm
Herbert Smith lands role on Malaysian Maxis IPO
Herbert Smith has scored a lead role on the first international initial public offering (IPO) to come out of Malaysia in five years.A combined Singapore and London team advised global coordinator ABN Amro Rothschild and joint bookrunners ABN, Goldman Sachs and ING Bank on the international and US law aspects of the Maxis Communications IPO.The IPO values Maxis, Malaysia's leading mobile phone operator, at $3bn (£1.96bn). The $803m (£523.7m) global offering involved a retail ...
Hobson Audley wins tender for Wimpy Group's secondary MBO
Hobson Audley has beaten off competition from a multitude of law firms and has secured a new client in the shape of the management team of Wimpy Restaurants Group.
Hot flushes
While it is not normal practice to comment on the behaviour of fellow journalists at other publications operating in the legal arena, Tulkinghorn feels obliged to make an exception this week.A story appeared in The Telegraph last week that really caught his eye. The news comes from those lovely chaps at Ernst & Young's (E&Y) Fetter Lane offices, where lunchtime breaks have been anticipated with even more excitement than usual over the last few weeks. At least, it ...
Hunton in Warsaw gets Dewey-eyed
US firm Hunton & Williams has closed its Warsaw office following the defection of five partners and an unspecified number of associates and support staff to Dewey Ballantine
India to welcome foreign lawyers
The Indian government has proposed sweeping reforms aimed at paving the way for entry of foreign lawyers
JPMorgan freezes out Weil Gotshal in London
Weil scales back finance; talks with Veil Armfelt signal corporate European push
Lawyer survey reveals drop in law firms' economic confidence
Economic pessimism rises from 13 to 21 per cent since last quarter; regional firms expect brighter future than the City
Linklaters takes top billing in Asian M&A deal league tables
Linklaters is top of Thomson Financial's half-yearly league tables for announced Asian M&A on both value and volume, but other UK firms, including Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Herbert Smith, have plummeted down the rankings
Linklaters to launch radical overhaul of conflicts system
Linklaters is planning to introduce a 24-hour conflict check system similar to that employed by Clifford Chance, with staff working round the clock in at least three dedicated offices
Lovells' 'Mexican Wave' concept tempts PruPIM to radical steps
PruPIM picks Lovells after review; Berwin Leighton Paisner elbowed out; market sceptical of provincial outsourcing style
Maples Teesdale group set for Lee & Pembertons
Lincoln's Inn firm Maples Teesdale is facing the loss of its private client team to Lee & Pembertons
Maxwell Batley in management rejig
Niche firm Maxwell Batley is seizing on the shock departure of its high-profile senior partner as an opportunity to overhaul the firm's management and rejuvenate the business
Mills & Reeve receives shot in the arm as NHS agencies defect from Pinsents
Mills & Reeve has won a new client - the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency (Pasa) and the NHS Logistics Authority - from under the nose of former adviser Pinsent Curtis Biddle
Namibian Law Soc in equality campaign
The Law Society of Namibia has announced a proposal to give equal representation to black and white lawyers on the Law Society Council
Office for Scant Service
The Annual report of the Legal Services Ombudsman, released this week, was far from complimentary about the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors (OSS). No surprises there. But Tulkinghorn was amazed by the true level of ineptitude.Mrs A made a complaint to the OSS, and after much toing and froing received a letter three months later to say that the OSS could not deal with her complaint. "If they'd read her initial letter properly - or indeed at all - they could have ...
Ombudsman slates OSS for lack of client care
The Law Society and the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors (OSS) have again been attacked by the Office of the Legal Services Ombuds-man (OLSO)
Opinion
At the moment, I'm firmly of the school which says, 'This is all too difficult, we'd better give up'," So said Mr Justice Ferris after hearing econometric evidence in the Reference to the Restrictive Practices Court of the rules for the sale of rights to televise Premier League football. His words were a recognition that the technicality of particular sorts of evidence or argument means that more than just decent submissions may be needed for a court to be able to ...
Orrick wins Akin partner in London
Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe is stepping up the pace of its recruitment in London as it takes on its second partner in the space of two months
Picking up the pieces
Enronitis has defined new frontiers of professional and corporate governance, says John Powell QC
Preparing a defence
The honeymoon period since the demise of SIF is over and professional indemnity premiums are set to rise. Sarah Grant warns firms to start getting ready for the worst
Reality bites
Many law firms are chewing fingernails over PI premium rises, but as Jon Robins reports, there is an acknowledgment that it will still be better than living under the shadow of SIF
Simmons & Simmons' David Sandy resurfaces
David Sandy, the Simmons & Simmons partner who was indicted over BCCI, has re-emerged at the centre of Interbrew's ongoing attempt to force news organisations to disclose their sources
Strategic weapons in risk management
Can or should strategic litigation such as Cave v Robinson Jarvis & Rolf help to manage the legal profession's risk?
Succession race kicks off at Eversheds as Gray is tipped for the top
The race for the new Eversheds managing partner has started, as current nati-onal managing partner Dav-id Ansbro's term ends in May 2003, when he will retire
The blame game
Directors' liability insurance may not be as big as predicted, but as Gareth Chadwick reports, it is lurking at the threshold
The Gladiators
It's a war out there and Amelans is in the thick of the action. Jon Robins talks to the firm's only two partners about their battle against the insurers and the costs negotiators
The Leader Column
Oh, what a circus it was on Friday. Simmons & Simmons partner David Sandy turned up at the offices of the Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times and The Independent to get hold of the leaked Interbrew documents following the refusal of permission to appeal to the Lords. He was greeted by a battery of cameras, but came away empty-handed. Oddly, the Simmons camp expressed surprise at the presence of the cameras, but they could hardly have expected anything less.There's quite enough ...
The truth about transparency
Have you noticed that certain words seem to crop up more often than others? It is buzzword syndrome.
UK law cleaned up by soap
As most of you will be aware, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) last week issued a historic judgment in the case of Goodwin & I v UK. After almost 50 years of case judgments in the UK and the ECHR that have failed to protect transsexual people's rights, the ECHR last week ruled that UK law violates both Article 8 (the right to private and family life) and Article 12 (the right to marry).However, what you might perhaps not know is that one of the key ingredients ...
UK lawyer joins Afghan judiciary
A lawyer from Reading who returned to Afghanistan to help rebuild its legal systems has been made director to the secretariat of the Afg-han Judiciary Commission
Weil Gotshal bankruptcy partner and mentor leaves for Greenhill
Harvey Miller, the man widely credited with masterminding the growth and success of Weil Gotshal & Manges' bankruptcy practice, has resigned from the firm
Wet suits
Tulkinghorn is always fascinated by what those crazy types at Slaughter and May are up to. After all, it's nothing but a rollercoaster ride of fun in Bunhill Row at the moment. So he was particularly happy to bring you the latest instalment of the saga of the pond in reception. If you recall, this has caused consternation among unwary visitors, many of whom have taken a wrong turn and found ...
What's the damage?
With the time looming for firms to renew their professional indemnity cover, Deborah Talbot looks at three recent cases that may have an impact on how much you pay
White & Case takes on Helsinki competition head
White & Case has appointed a new head of competition in its Helsinki office, expanding the firm's competition capability in the region for the first time
Wragges fills senior and managing partner roles
Wragge & Co has finally settled its succession issue by appointing Quentin Poole as senior partner and former head of corporate Richard Haywood as managing partner
