Online gaming business PartyGaming was catapulted into the FTSE100 after floating on the London Stock Exchange last summer. That was a mighty feat for a new company operating in what can best be summed up as a regulatory minefield.

The two men at the centre of one of the most highly publicised IPOs of 2005 were PartyGaming’s director of legal affairs Julian Jarvis and group general counsel David Abdoo. Jarvis was brought in last year to help the company set up a legal team while it prepared for the float. And thanks to the experience Jarvis gained in his previous role at AOL, he was the perfect candidate for the job.

Indeed, as one of the most high-profile FTSE100 companies of the moment, PartyGaming’s relatively small in-house legal function had its hands full, a fact underlined by the court action it was facing at the time of going to press from former partner Empire Online.