Clifford Chance has retained its position as top legal adviser in European M&A according to preliminary figures published by Mergermarket for the third quarter of 2005. The magic circle firm advised on 189 deals worth Eu 196.8bn, Eu 47bn more than magic circle rival Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, which ranked number 2 after advising on 147 […]
DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary looks set to add Belgium to its growing collection of Coudert Brother offices The DLA Piper partnership is voting on a proposal to take up to 34 lawyers including eight partners and up to 26 other fee earners. If the vote goes through the new recruits would give DLA Piper […]
Arnold & Porter has snared Simmons & Simmons IT lawyer Murali Neelakantan, the key figure in Simmons’ booming offshore outsourcing practice. Neelakantan played a crucial role advising Tata Consultancy Services on its role in the National Health Service’s National Programme for IT in the NHS. He joins Arnold & Porter intellectual property and technology group […]
FRESHFIELDS Bruckhaus Deringer has advised private equity house Cinven on the sale of healthclub chain Fitness First for £835 m to BC Partners. Dickson Minto, long standing advisers to BC Partners, stood opposite Freshfields in the deal. It marks the completion of an investment cycle for Cinven, with Freshfields also advising Cinven on the purchase […]
Equitable Life has this morning settled its £2.6 b claim against former auditors Ernst & Young by discontinuing its claim, with each side left to pay its own costs. Ernst & Young’s barrister Mark Hapgood QC of Brick Court Chambers, described Equitable’s move to settle as the “biggest climb-down in English legal history”. “At the […]
Dorsey & Whitney’s London office has hired a litigation team of three senior associates from Slaughter and May and capital markets partner John Chrisman from Coudert Brothers. The litigators, Jean-Pierre Douglas-Henry, Thomas Ross, and Jamie Curle, will join Dorsey in October. They have particular experience in banking and financial services litigation. They played key roles […]
Herbert Smith and Norton Rose have become the latest firms to hike their LPC maintenance grants. Both firms, which are part of the five-strong City LPC consortium, are increasing their maintenance grants to £7,000. The decisions take effect from September 2006 to bring the firms into line with amount paid by Linklaters, Clifford Chance and […]
US firm Kilpatrick Stockton has entered into redundancy negotiations with the majority of staff in its London office as it seeks to restructure the office in the image of its US practice. After a three-month review, the firm’s executive committee has concluded that the UK practice that it inherited from the defunct Altheimer & Gray […]
DECHERT has confirmed its committment to take on Coudert Brothers’ Paris office. As first revealed in The Lawyer on 12 September, Dechert agreed a deal to take a 32-lawyer team from the disintegrating Coudert. In a statement issued today, Dechert said the move would significantly expand its cross-border corporate/M&A, life sciences and international litigation/arbitration capabilities, […]
Denton Wilde Sapte is losing the head of Milton Keynes office as Eversheds ramps its real estate litigation department. Carole Peet, head of property litigation at Dentons is set to join Eversheds in November to work in its London office Peet has been at Dentons since 1988, becoming partner in 1993. Previously she worked at […]
Japanese firm Taiyo Law Office has been split in two by rival US firms O’Melveny & Myers and Paul Hastings Janofksy & Walker. As revealed on www.thelawyer.com (12 September), Paul Hastings merged with the Taiyo Law Office, with Norifusa Hashimoto, Yoshi Takatori, Jun Usami and Ayako Kawano joining as partners. The move prompted O’Melveny & […]
SJ Berwin has won back senior competition partner Tom Usher from Dundas & Wilson almost 18 months after he defected from the firm. Usher left SJ Berwin to join the Edinburgh office of D&W as head of EU competition in January 2004. At the time he had hoped to base the majority of his work […]