Dangerous things, mergers. I’m not talking about Penningtons’ takeover of zombie firm Manches, although that deal is tricky enough in itself – as we expose in considerable detail this week. I’m referring to the shenanigans at Ashurst, SJ Berwin and Herbert Smith Freehills, whose global mergers have seen partners skitter off in all directions. At all […]
Advisers get stuck into the disentangling task, to unhitch troubled bank from group ‘Here for you for life’ reads the Co-op’s slogan. It probably doesn’t feel quite that way for its legal advisers at the moment. As the Co-op Group and the Co-op Bank continue their elaborate £1.5bn disentangling effort, details are emerging of the […]
Stephen Lloyd’s exit piles on the pressure, just when firm was hoping for a breather Ashurst has had more than its fair share of dramas in the past six weeks – a multimillion-pound merger, a shock leadership change and an overhaul of the board. Now, as they frantically search for the ‘pause’ button, they are […]
The curious case of Manches’ suicidal cashflow management and its eleventh-hour rescue by Penningtons
Path to outsourcing is not a smooth one for banking supergroup Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) has seen more bombshells than an EastEnders Christmas special. In July The Lawyer revealed the bank was looking to outsource its retail & wealth and asset finance litigation teams to a panel firm, a leak that went down like a […]
If criminal law practitioners, incensed by the Law Society’s pliancy to legal aid cuts, pass a motion of no confidence, they will open the way for more regulatory change It is not difficult to see why the top bureaucrat at the solicitors’ professional body has become a bête noire for so many at the publicly […]
From Coronation Street to Legoland to Serie A football – glamorous transactions were grist for the mill last month, gilding the lily of big energy and infrastructure deals A flurry of media, entertainment and sport deals helped usher in autumn, adding a star-studded sheen to a background of hefty energy and infrastructure transactions. Shoosmiths and […]
Confusion over disciplinary judgments means lawyers can’t know right from wrong News last week that two Addleshaw Goddard partners had been fined £5,000 each by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal was met with disdain – not because they were fined but because it is unclear what for. According to the firm, partners Emmett Peters and David […]
The consensus approach to monitoring online privacy is more effective than imposing inflexible rules Data protection is unique among legal disciplines in that it is defined in large part by societal attitudes rather than on a rule or legal precedent. These attitudes evolve, changing the standard for compliance around a particular practice or disclosure. As […]
Ralph Miliband’s diary could have been kept secret if Ed had used new Guernsey rights legislation Amid the recent furore surrounding the Ralph Miliband story, some details might have been missed. The dispute arose from an article in the Daily Mail describing Miliband Snr as “the man who hated Britain”. The allegation seemed to hinge […]
No progress on freeing up the Scottish legal market means no chance for Scottish firms to innovate Ever since ABS became a discussion point in the UK jurisdictions the Scottish debate has lacked the drive to meet all indicative timelines for introducing regulatory change, despite the Scottish legal profession overcoming an industry-wide argument on the […]
What was your worst experience as a pupil? Being asked by the judge in a jury trial – and in front of the jury – whether my cross-examination of the principal prosecution witness was going to get any better. Where’s the best place to go if you want to find out what’s really going on in […]