14 August 2000

Kevin Dunn

Kevin Dunn is leaving his post as general counsel at GE Capital and taking his little black book with him. Dearbail Jordan talks to him about his move to US firm Latham & Watkins Kevin Dunn, European general counsel at GE Capital and soon to be US firm Latham & Watkins’ new acquisition finance partner, […]

White & Case Feddersen acts on Slovak Telecom privatisation

White & Case Feddersen has advised the Slovak government on the privatisation of Slovak Telecom, the largest privatisation in the country’s history. The deal was completed last week with the sale of 51 per cent of Slovak Telecom to Deutsche Telecom for euro1bn (£625m). Slovak Telecom was one of the last fixed line companies in […]

A View from Ireland

The global e-commerce revolution has had an enormous impact on all aspects of commercial life in Ireland and has contributed to making it the fastest growing economy in Europe. The growth of e-commerce related activities in the country is a result of a number of factors; cultural, commercial and legal. The Irish government has traditionally […]

Landwell

Landwell represented high-tech company Zen Holdings on its £240m listing on the London Stock Exchange. Landwell’s alliance partner PricewaterhouseCoopers provided advice on the long form report, corporate governance issues and employment share schemes. Corporate partner Simon Walker led a team of three on the listing. Linklaters & Alliance also advised Zen Holdings while Bay Venture […]

Financing

Davis Polk & Wardwell acted for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Private Equity and Morgan Stanley Senior Funding in relation to the arrangement of $350m (£233m) in financings for Choice One Communications. Partner Leonard Kreynin acted with an eight-strong team on the deal. US firm Nixon Peabody represented Choice One.

Placements

CMS Cameron McKenna’s Hong Kong office advised Intcera High Tech Group on its Growth Enterprise Market listing on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong. The offering raised over HK$144m (£12.3m). Corporate partner Gordon Ng acted with a team of two on the deal.

Charging clients by the hour does not pay

Centuries ago, some lawyer came up with the idea of charging for his services by the hour. At the time, this was probably a novel concept. It seemed to work well enough and it has certainly withstood the test of time. One has to wonder, however, whether hourly billing has outlived its usefulness. In our […]

Rozenberg

What on earth is going on at the Lockerbie trial? Regular readers will remember from our last visit to the Scottish Court in The Netherlands that prosecuting lawyers were having difficulties in producing enough witnesses to keep the case going. Things don’t seem to have got much better; on Friday 21 July, for example, the […]

Quote of the week

“It doesn’t matter to Andersen Consulting if they are called Andersen Consulting or Winnie the Pooh.” Simpson Thacher & Bartlett’s Barry Ostrager, head of the legal team representing Andersen Consulting on its split from Arthur Andersen, on the importance of branding.

Lewis Silkin

Lewis Silkin acted for Agilent Technologies UK on its acquisition of the 26,000sq ft office on the AMEC Cheadle Royal Business Park in Manchester. Head of property Leonard Goodrich led the team on the transaction. Eversheds acted for intermediate landlord AMEC while Nabarro Nathanson acted for immediate landlords Abbey Life.

Masons

Masons represented Carillion Construction on the negotiation and drafting of the building contract, capital replacement contract and associated trade contracts for an £800m PFI project for GCHQ, the UK’s signals and intelligence agency. PFI partner Huw Baker led a team of six on the deal.

The debt holy grail

Ironic, isn’t it? For five years Weil Gotshal & Manges argued that it was a credible City alternative to the finance duopoly of Allen & Overy and Clifford Chance. It made inroads when it advised Barclays on the Kappa buyout 18 months ago, but its role for Chase Manhattan and Barclays on the $2.3bn (£1.5bn) […]