8 January 2001
The Lawyer
3-4 South Sq wins global door tenants
Insolvency set 3-4 South Square has taken on two new door tenants as part of a policy to develop international links through its members.
A View from Washington
Only the most preliminary observations can be made at this date as to the likely antitrust landscape that will take shape under the administration of President-elect George Bush. Certainly, it would be reckless for one to read very much into "off-the-cuff", unrehearsed campaign remarks concerning any antitrust initiative, especially those related to a particular case, for example, US v Microsoft.
A year ago this week
Former managing partner of Clifford Chance moves to Arthur AndersenThe Lawyer revealed that former Clifford Chance managing partner Tony Williams was to quit the newlymerged firm to join the legal arm of accountants Arthur Andersen.Williams was attracted by the high-profile international role of senior partner and a salary reported to be around £1m. He eventually joined ...
Akin Gump merger partner loses top insurance team
A team of nearly 30 lawyers is leaving a Los Angeles firm that is merging with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld to join Howrey Simon Arnold & White.
Ashursts scoops £2bn BT property contract
Ashurst Morris Crisp is advising British Telecommunications (BT) on the sale and leaseback of its £2bn UK property estate, set to be the UK's largest property outsourcing contract to date.The deal, involving 7,500 properties, dwarfs similar examples in the public sector and goes further than the first private real estate partnership (Prep) agreed between Abbey National and Mapeley ...
B&M snaps up Briones to create Spain's largest independent firm
Baker & McKenzie has merged with Spanish law firm Briones Alonso y Martín to create the largest independent law firm in Spain.
BAR TALK
Shortly before the Christmas break another Bar Council initiative was unveiled: a European circuit for the bar of England and Wales. On the plus side, the exceptional David Vaughan QC is at its helm. The new circuit, based on the existing organisations that have been around since the 12th century in the UK, hopes to provide a forum for UK practitioners working across Europe to discuss developments and liaise with other jurisdictions.According to Bar Council ...
Beachcrofts wins battle for BAE insurance liability work
Insurance giant Beachcroft Wansbroughs has beaten two major insurance litigation firms to win a contract making it sole adviser to BAE Systems for insurance-related liability claims.The contract includes all insurance areas except aviation. Beachcrofts will be responsible for investigating employers' liability and third-party claims ranging from personal injury to product liability.Beachcrofts partner Iain Moore, who will manage a team from the Manchester ...
Beazer slashes UK property legal panel
Construction company Beazer Homes is cutting its property legal panel by more than half as it reaches the final stages of its proposed merger with Bryant.At present the company uses six external firms, including Davies Arnold Cooper, Ward Hadaway, Hammond Suddards Edge and Eversheds, throughout its regions, ...
Blandys hires insolvency ace from Clarks
Reading firm Blandy & Blandy has bolstered its corporate and technology practice with the appointment of insolvency expert David Few from local rival Clarks. The hire comes as the prospect of economic recession appears to be looming closer.Company and commercial lawyer Few says: "Obviously there's concern that things are going to change. People are being more cautious. In a very proactive way lawyers are trying to assist clients in preparing for anything unforeseen ...
Break on the border
Fiona Callister finds out how Bevan Ashford chief executive Nick Jarrett-Kerr is reacting to a reduction in work for English firms due to changes prompted by Welsh devolution
Brief encounter: Barnetts
Barnetts Solicitors began life in 1987 as a local Southport firm. It has experienced all the associated difficulties which are well known to small firms in the North West, most notably a shrinking client base, particularly a reduction in the amount of local work, and the inability to compete with City firms. Firms have been faced with the question of how to survive in an increasingly competitive environment.Some choose to merge or be gobbled up by the bigger ...
CC's Pollard to take early retirement
Clifford Chance's chief operating officer Garth Pollard is to retire after more than three decades with the firm.Pollard joined Clifford Turner in 1969 from Ingledow Brown Benninson & Garrett, where he qualified.He is one of the architects of the 1999 mergers with Rogers & Wells and Pünder Volhard Weber & Axster that created the current firm. His replacement will ...
Commerzbank reviews legal panel
Commerzbank is conducting a review of its preferred legal advisers just a year after setting up the panel.The move coincides with the German bank instructing Lovells for the first time when the firm advised on its role as arranger and underwriter on Vaillant's bid for UK engineering group Hepworth (see page 13).Because of conflicts, the bank's main corporate advisers - Clifford ...
CORPORATE
Belgium-based KBC Bank undertakes a £219m recommended bid for UK stockbroker Peel Hunt. KBC Bank represented by CMS Cameron McKenna (Nick Paul). Peel Hunt advised by Linklaters & Alliance (Steven Turnbull).
CORPORATE
Is everyone experiencing New Year blues or do corporate lawyers really have a genuine excuse for being so downbeat about the coming year? Ask any legal professional for their opinion on how 2001 looks to be shaping up and the response is doom and gloom.
CORPORATE
Pernod Ricard and Diageo make a £5.5bn joint purchase of the spirits and wine business of the Seagram Company. Pernod Ricard represented by Macfarlanes (Robert Sutton and Tim Lewis) with US advice from Debevoise & Plimpton. Financial advisers JP Morgan and Société Générale. Diageo represented by
Ex-Shearmans partner joins European fund
Shearman & Sterling's former head of European acquisition finance has resurfaced, acting on a new debt fund venture for private equity player CapVest.Stephen Mostyn-Williams, who left the US firm at the end of last year (The Lawyer, 4 December) will be working alongside two former investment bankers as a managing director on a euro1bn (£632m) fund, entitled AIG Mezzvest, ...
FINANCE
British Telecommunications in Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)-registered $10bn (£6.7bn) multi-tranche note offering in 5
FINANCE
Credit Suisse First Boston
FINANCE
Lloyds Associated Air Leasing
FINANCE
Turkish bank Koçbank originates $300m (£200.76m) future flow securitisation programme with WestLB as arranger. Koçbank advised by White & Case in London (Jake Jackaman). WestLB advised by Brown & Wood (Margaret Boswell).
GALA GROUP
The second deal of its kind for this group of bridge lenders and Gala Group Holdings. The advisers mirror those working on Gala's acquisition by Credit Suisse First Boston Private Equity last spring, where a bridge loan was used for the £100m purchase followed by a high-yield debt issue, which closed in May. Gala says that the bridge loan will be refinanced through the capital markets, but the bridge lenders - Credit Suisse, JP Morgan and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) - have again opted ...
George Alfred Carman QC: 1929-2001
George Alfred Carman QC, who died aged 71 on 2 January, was always determined, but never dour.His true Northern grit showed through when, shortly after retiring on August 29 last year on doctor's orders, he revealed on Breakfast with Frost that not only had he been suffering from cancer of the prostate gland for three years, but also that he had often undergone treatment for the disease in the mornings before turning up at court. "You can help the doctors enormously ...
Gray Cary wins IP four after Limbach closes
Silicon Valley powerhouse Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich is picking up a team of four partners from intellectual property (IP) boutique Limbach & Limbach, which closed its doors at the end of last year.Name partners Karl and George Limbach will join Gray Cary along with Ronald Yin and Gerald Sekimura. The move comes despite Karl Limbach telling The Lawyer in December that the firm was close to a merger with
Hogans lands telecoms ace from Hughes
The Paris office of Washington's largest law firm Hogan & Hartson has poached a top communications partner from rival Hughes Hubbard & Reed.Winston Maxwell, who is highly regarded within his sector, represents clients in telecommunications, internet and new media law. He is admitted to practice in New York and is an Avocat à la Cour in Paris.Managing partner of the firm's Paris office Alan Cariddi says: "Maxwell has a strong telecommunications ...
Insolvency practices prepare for the worst
CC Raids Lovells workout team; Dechert launches insolvency practice; Herbert Smith group splinters
Jones Day hires new London finance partner
Cleveland firm Jones Day Reavis & Pogue is taking on a finance partner for its London office from Crédit Lyonnais.Martin Bartlam, who was a partner at Wilde Sapte until becoming a banker in 1998, heads the structured products group in London for Crédit Lyonnais. He has recently been involved in developing high-yield and leveraged financing products from Paris.Robert ...
Jones Day limbers up for Asia Pacific finance push
Jones Day Reavis & Pogue is ramping up its new Singapore office with two new partners from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Denton Wilde Sapte.
Judgments
Michael Douglas (1) Catherine Zeta Jones (2) Northern & Shell Plc (3) v Hello! Ltd (2000) CAJudges: Brooke LJ, Sedley LJ, Keene LJTheodore Goddard instructed Michael Tugendhat QC and David Sherborne of 5 Raymond Buildings (Hello!). Charles Russell instructed Henry Carr QC and Giles Fernando, both of 11 South Square (Douglas and Zeta Jones).Douglas ...
Linklaters finalises Sainsbury's deal
Linklaters & Alliance has completed the complex £969m sale of J Sainsbury's DIY business Homebase to Schroder Ventures.
LISTINGS
Kiren Amgen v Boehringer Mannheim & ors and Hoechst v Kiren Amgen (January 15) Chancery DivisionJudge: Neuberger JBird & Bird instructed Anthony Watson QC, Andrew Waugh QC and Colin Birss of 3 New Square (TKT - respondent). Taylor Joynson Garrett instructed Anthony Watson QC and Andrew Waugh QC of 3 New Square (Amgen). Herbert Smith instructed Simon Thorley QC of 3 New ...
Lloyd's v jaffray & ors - summary of judgment
Queen's Bench Division Commercial Court (Cresswell J) 3 November 2000This trial of an action formed part of the Lloyd's Names litigation, which concerned three sample Lloyd's Names who had not accepted the reconstruction and renewal settlement.The issue was whether Lloyd's had made misrepresentations that it knew to be untrue and/or was reckless whether they were true or false; whether such misrepresentations were communicated ...
Lovells wins Commerzbank after panel firms conflicted
Lovells is acting for Commerzbank for the first time after the bank's main corporate advisers were conflicted out on German-based Vaillant's £692m bid for engineering group Hepworth.
Minogue quits Camerons for Linklaters
Linklaters & Alliance has scooped leading construction partner Ann Minogue from CMS Cameron McKenna.The hire is a coup for Linklaters' real estate department. Minogue has worked on a range of major construction projects, including Broadgate, Canary Wharf and Stockley Park, and is currently advising on the ...
Norton Rose thwarted on Spitalfields development
A small Cambridge firm has outwitted Norton Rose's planning department and delayed plans for a controversial multi-million-pound commercial development in Spitalfields Market.Local residents, using solicitors Richard Buxton, hindered the developers. The firm instructed silk Patrick Clarkson QC and planning junior Richard Harwood of 1 Serjeants' Inn, whose final draft forced Tower ...
Old Square hires PI silk
Old Square Chambers has bolstered its practice by taking experienced professional indemnity and clinical negligence silk David Wilby QC from the chambers of 199 Strand.
Opinion
When a four-year-old bulk carrier, supposedly built and classed to extraordinary specifications, sinks in a distinctly unextraordinary typhoon, there are bound to be issues that the victims' families find hard to come to terms with. But in the case of merchant vessel The Derbyshire, it has taken 20 years to hold a meaningful inquiry.The Derbyshire disappeared in 1980 with 44 people on board, but the British Government - against the norm in the ...
Pillsbury in coast-to-coast US merger
San Francisco firm Pillsbury Madison & Sutro has completed its merger with New York's Winthrop Stimson Putnam & Roberts and pushed its own partners to head the new management team.
Powerhouse
Created from the demerger of National Power, International Power's legal team has experienced massive change. Mary Murphy talks to the head of the two legal departments
PRUDENTIAL
Lovells helped win Prudential the go-ahead from Manchester City Council to redevelop the Arndale Centre, despite a difficult climate for town and city centre development.
Real Estate and Projects
Schroder Ventures Life Sciences, Credit Suisse First Boston Private Equity and Abingworth Bioventures participate in £30m financing of biotech company Oxagen. The investors advised by SJ Berwin. Oxagen advised by Manches (Patrick Baddely).
Real Estate and Projects
Prudential wins go-ahead from Manchester City Council for £100m mixed-use redevelopment of the Arndale Centre. Prudential advised by Lovells (Michael Gallimore). Manchester City Council advised by Slaughter and May (David Beales).
Real Estate and Projects
Sydney & London Properties buys Dorland House, the headquarters of Cordiant Communications, London, for £22m in its largest single acquisition to date. Sydney & London advised by Olswang (Philip Olmer). The vendor Escort Property Investment was advised by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer ...
Real Estate and Projects
The partners of Moorstone Arundel Partners dispose of the US limited partnership, which owns Arundel Great Court, for £138.5m. The partners were advised by CMS Cameron McKenna (Charles Romney, Richard Croker) and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York (Glenn Kesselhaut). The identity of the purchaser remains ...
Real Estate and Projects
Gemplus makes euro430m (£271.7m) initial public offering, including a listing on the Premier Marché of Euronext Paris and a NASDAQ quotation. Gemplus advised by Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton (Peter Darrow, Andrew Bernstein, Robert Bordeaux-Groult, Jay Modrall).
Richards Butler boosts corporate finance practice
During his time at the firm, Douglas acted on a number of high profile deals including a joint venture between Dutch companies Blackwell and Swets & Zeitlinger to create the largest journal subscription agency. A long term client of Douglas', Blackwell was also advised by Eversheds merger Dutch merger partner Boekel de Neree and Proskauer Rose in the US. The firm ...
Simmons prepares Korean link
Simmons & Simmons is laying the groundwork for a possible merger with its South Korea referral firm Shin & Kim.
Simmons takes over Düsseldorf boutique for entry into Germany
City firm Simmons & Simmons is merging with a single-partner firm in Düsseldorf, giving it a German law capability for the first time.
SYDNEY & LONDON PROPERTIES
The past two years have seen Sydney & London Properties becoming increasingly acquisitive, with the private Cardiff-based company making a conscious decision to trade up and become more active in the UK market.
The Firm
To ensure fairness, our "100 lawyers to watch" is based on extensive research into every lawyer in the City. For example, here are the notes on three lawyers from medium-sized City practice The Firm.Provisional draft (4 December 2000)Tom Henderson: Managing partner and main rainmaker of leading City practice The Firm, Henderson is a popular figure, affectionately labelled "The Enforcer" by staff. As the leading ...
The Leader column
Hands up everyone whose New Year resolutions include any of the following: lose weight, cut down on drinking, write a novel, get a new job, see more of the family, see less of the family, start saving. Thought so. Pointless resolutions will no doubt still be the topic of office conversation this week, it would be a lot more interesting if law firms and chambers made resolutions along the same lines. So here are some helpful suggestions.
The Names to watch
There always has to be a twist. Just when you might have thought the Jaffray case - and with it the last of the Lloyd's litigation - was over, the Names once more tried to pull something out of the hat. The very day that Mr Justice Cresswell delivered his judgment, the Names - through their legal team More Fisher Brown and counsel Simon Goldblatt QC, Vincent Nelson and Gordon Nardell - suddenly sought to amend their pleadings to bring the Human Rights Act into play.
Usher takes top spot at DLA's London office
National law firm DLA has appointed a new London managing partner to succeed Paul Nicholls, who died suddenly last October.Catherine Usher is the first woman to be appointed by DLA to head an office.The firm's overall strategy is set by an elected board, and Usher's role will be to coordinate and implement that strategy in the London office.Usher, a senior property partner, says that a managing partner should ensure the smooth delivery of ...
Watson Farley-Hunton merger plans flounder
Talks between Watson Farley & Williams and US firm Hunton & Williams have fallen through for the second time.The two firms, which have been in the advanced stages of talks since October, are understood to have abandoned marriage plans that could have created a 300-partner firm.They considered a joint venture linkup in 1999, but those discussions also fell at the ...
White & Case loses partners to Shearmans
US law firm White & Case is losing two of its German partners to rival firm Shearman & Sterling.
