Herbert Smith has hired Credit Suisse First Boston director Henry Raine (left) as a partner for its corporate finance business group. Raine had been a corporate finance director at BZW before its recent sale to Credit Suisse.
A team of 13 English lawyers at US firm Sidley & Austin has become the first to advise in what is set to become a major new UK market public house securitisation. The firm’s London office advised Morgan Stanley & Co International on arranging a £231m bond issue for the Wellington Pub Company. The bonds […]
With such an abundance of talent in professional negligence, the juniors rated particularly high praise, writes Matheu Swallow. Matheu Swallow is a freelance journalist. With professional negligence covering such a broad spectrum of work, the names recommended are too numerous to mention. But certain chambers with a broad base of rated individuals stand out. In […]
THE POST Office has slashed the law firms on its panel from 40 to just four each of which can expect to receive around £0.5m a year in fee income. Eversheds, Hammond Suddards, Weightmans and Bond Pearce are the successful bidders for four three-year contracts to handle the Post Office’s personal injury litigation, employment law […]
Labour MP Austin Mitchell is to present a Ten Minute Rule Bill in the House of Commons calling for the creation of a Ministry of Justice, a salaried legal service and a modernised judiciary. Ten Minute Rule Bills allow backbenchers to initiative debates in parliament. Mitchell’s call for a ministry of justice whose leader would […]
The reunification of Italian law firm Carnelutti to fight back against English law firms has been undermined by a schism in the Milan office. It has emerged that only five of the Milan office’s 16 partners have merged with Carnelutti in Rome. The remaining 11 objected to the merger and formed a new partnership Vita […]
Tony Wells has “shocked” barristers at the commercial set Hardwicke Building by resigning as chief executive to become chambers director at Cherie Booth’s chancery set 4-5 Gray’s Inn Square. Wells was at Hardwicke Building for five years and will start “in the next six months”. He takes over from the highly-respected senior clerk of 40 […]
A conference on the globalisation of mutual funds is being held in Bermuda on from 3 to 6 May. It is being organised by the International Bar Association and will look at the issues surrounding the implementation of global compliance programmes in the mutual funds industry. The keynote speaker will be Barry Barbash, director of […]
Both individuals and businesses are defrauding the NHS, but preventing the crime is not easy, writes Sally Calverley. Sally Calverley is a commercial and property litigation partner at Capsticks. Every year the National Health Service (NHS) loses £130m of taxpayers’ money through forged prescription forms and patients avoiding prescription charges. Money is also lost when […]
The Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine has extended the role of the Legal Aid Board’s Special Investigations Unit to cover criminal as well as civil cases, in a move welcomed both by the Legal Aid Practitioners Group and the Criminal Law Solicitors Association. A pilot scheme will be held from 6 April until October at selected […]
Mayer Brown & Platt advised NM Rothschild & Sons and the lending syndicate on providing a US$60m dollar/gold credit facility to finance construction and development of Ashanti Goldfields Company’s Bibiani gold mine project in Ghana. Norton Rose advised Ashanti.