Flotations
Garretts acted for Soccer Investments
Property
Olswang acted in England and Cole & Co in Scotland for retail property company Capital and Regional Properties on its £147m acquisition of five shopping centres – three in England and two in Scotland – from clients of Grosvenor Asset Management, represented by Kanter Jules in England and Maclay Murray & Spens in Scotland.
Financing
Norton Rose advised Russian brewer SUN Brewing on its $30m (£18.7m) financing. Its parent company STI sold put and call options on SUN shares to Merrill Lynch and other international investors. Linklaters & Paines advised Merrill Lynch and Debevoise Plimpton advised STI.
Financing
Nabarro Nathanson advised Millwall Football Club
Let's level the playing field
Northern Ireland (population 1.5 million) is similar to a very large, rural English county with one medium-sized centre (Belfast, population 350,000). And the problems facing its legal practitioners are similar to those faced by their provincial English counterparts with much premium legal work going to London and a proliferation of small high street firms (75 […]
In brief: Scottish complaints system under fire
The Scottish advocates’ complaints system has been slammed as unfair and outdated by the Scottish Legal Services Ombudsman. In his annual report, ombudsman Garry Watson says the Faculty of Advocates’ complaints procedure compared unfavourably with the one recently launched by the Bar Council in England and Wales. Watson said there was a need for more […]
In brief: Leeds Law Soc elects Baker as president
Walker Morris property partner Alan Baker has been elected as president of the Leeds Law Society. He will take over the post from Ian Goldman. Baker said that he aimed to create a greater awareness of the work of the society and wanted to increase its impact as a pressure group.
Not all's fair in employment
Religious and political discrimination in Nor-thern Ireland is regarded as a “fairly lucrative” business for lawyers. Well over £1m has been paid to successful complainants over the past five years, not including costs and legal fees. Yet only around 30 members of the legal profession currently specialise in fair employment cases. “It’s a dirty business […]
It's competition time
Late last year Ireland’s newly-constituted Competition Authority conducted its first “dawn raid” at the Dublin premises of Opel Ireland. The authority was investigating a complaint that the company’s up-front advertising campaign, which promised that every Opel dealer would offer the same low price on certain new Opel cars, contravened the Competition Act. Soon after the […]
Chambers beckon to retiring judge
Retiring judge Gerald Butler QC has taken the unusual step of returning to his old chambers to practise, after spotting a gap in the legal market for media and entertainment arbitration. Butler left One Essex Court to sit on the bench in 1982, becoming Presiding Judge at Southwark Crown Court for 13 years before retiring […]
Lithuanian privatisation job down to final two
Clifford Chance and Simmons & Simmons are on the Lithuanian government’s shortlist to advise on the privatisation of Lithuanian Telecom. Clifford Chance is advising French investment bank Banque Paribas and Simmons & simmons is advising NatWest Markets. Both Paribas and NatWest are on the shortlist to become lead financial advisers to the privatisation, drawn up […]
Andersens appeals Dutch MDPs ban
Arthur Andersen is gearing up for a High Court challenge in Holland against a ban on multidisciplinary partnerships. Arthur Andersen, which has its own law firm, Wouters, in Holland, and Price Waterhouse, which wants to establish its own law firm, lost the first round of their legal battles with the Dutch Bar in the district […]