In a world of increasing consolidation, where the accounting “big five” hold sway, the insolvency field provides some welcome relief. The usual giants – PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, Ernst & Young and Deloitte & Touche – have strong insolvency and restructuring teams. But they are being increasingly challenged by firms outside the big five – most notably […]
Roger Pearson reports on a music industry dispute over the singer’s royalty rights for six albums that has endured for three decades. A high-profile music industry battle is looming in the High Court over the royalty rights to six albums by the late Jimi Hendrix. The battle has been launched by Experience Hendrix LLC, a […]
A pet crematorium at Guilsborough is at the centre of a High Court planning and environmental battle. Mr Justice Turner has given leave for a challenge to be mounted against Daventry District Council’s decision to allow Timeright Ltd, operator of the crematorium, to expand its activities on the site to include disposal of medical and […]
John Warchus is an IT law partner at Lochners Technology Solicitors. In the first English judicial decision on internet defamation, the High Court struck out part of the defence of reasonable care. The decision in Laurence Godfrey v Demon Internet Ltd is significant to those responsible for web sites, intranets and, as here, an internet […]
Moquet Borde & Associes, the Paris firm, is leading a pan-European alliance. Swiss firm Meyer Lustenberger & Partner, German firm Beiten Burkhardt Mittl & Wegener, and Italian firm Pavia & Ansaldo will join forces to form the alliance. It is officially being launched at the beginning of June. Meanwhile, White & Case has recruited a […]
EVERSHEDS’ Cambridge office is expanding its niche areas of practice in biotechnology and intellectual property in a drive to beat its competitors. Eversheds – one of the five largest firms operating in Cambridge – added pharmaceuticals specialist Ros Cook from Bristows to its Cambridge biosciences team of six lawyers last month. The firm plans to […]
The government steered away from plans to pay lawyers bonuses to practise in remote areas when it announced its Community Legal Service (CLS) consultation paper last week. Geoff Hoon told The Lawyer last year that the Government could pay lawyers incentives to work in regions where legal services were lacking, but his replacement Keith Vaz […]
It is a case of the disappearing diamond for City firm Gouldens, which has dropped its old “G” logo and removed the “solicitors” tag as part of a full make-over. The new look for the millennium is estimated by one insider to have cost the 36-partner City firm a six-figure sum. Charters Macdonald-Brown, Gouldens managing […]
Bournemouth firm Lester Aldridge has poached planning and environmental expert Andrew Hignett from Osborne Clarke. Hignett, 45, now heads the firm’s planning and environmental unit as a partner. He previously headed Osborne Clarke’s planning unit as an associate. Hignett says: “The purpose behind the move is to develop my work in the planning and public […]
Some lawyers drop out because they have to. A Scottish husband and wife team, Gordon and Maria Thompson, took up coffee selling and hypnotism respectively after they were struck off in 1995 for making £30,000 worth of legal aid claims which they could not justify. But experts claim an increasing number of lawyers are dropping […]
1999 is a year Reed Elsevier must be wishing would end quickly. So far a fruitless 10-month search for a chief executive has only served to amplify huge rifts in the management board, culminating in the resignation of two directors. Speculation has also flared over the possibility that Reed Elsevier could be back in talks […]
Fiona Callister talks to David Dalgarno, the man who started his career at a textiles company but now sees that the business world is more than just material. Some years ago, I attended a conference for in-house lawyers in London which was attended by many firms. Each firm was encouraged to bring brochures which would […]