The Prime Minister’s office has announced the promotion of four judges to the Court of Appeal and one to the Law Lords. The appointments to the Court of Appeal are Mrs Justice Hallett, Mr Justice Moses, Mr Justice Richards and Mr Justice Wilson. Meanwhile, Lord Justice Mance has been promoted to a Lord of Appeal […]
New Zealand law firm Bell Gully has recruited the chairman of the International Bar Association’s (IBA) law firm management committee as its new chief executive. Stephen Macliver, who was appointed chairman of the IBA committee earlier this year, will join Bell Gully next month, replacing Maggie Callicrate as chief executive. Callicrate has decided to return […]
Hammonds has finally announced its financial results for 2005 and average profit per partner has sunk 25 per cent to £204,000 from £272,000 last year. After a delay due to the involvement of new auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers, as first revealed in The Lawyer (6 June 2005), the firm was able to brief partners on the results […]
Ashurst’s financial performance has rebounded with the firm reporting a 9 per cent increase in average profits per equity partner (PEP) last financial year to reach £567,000. But the increase was still not enough to fully counteract the firm’s dismal results in 2003/04, which saw average PEP tumble 11.7 per cent to £521,000, down from […]
Norton Rose is making the first attempts to plug the gap left by the move of four securities partners to Baker & McKenzie (B&M) with the hire of Lovells partner Laurence Garside. Garside, a capital markets specialist and head of Lovells’ derivatives group, will join Norton Rose in August. In May 2005 The Lawyer revealed […]
Denton Wilde Sapte (DWS) has started its cricket season by advising the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) on the renewal of its sponsorship arrangement with Vodafone. Under the new four-year deal Vodafone will remain the official team sponsor of the England team, the A team, the Academy team and the Women’s team. Vodafone has […]
Beleaguered Coudert Brothers has lost its public policy head in France to French independent Ginestié Magellan Paley-Vincent. Catherine Jeancolas joins former DLA ally Ginestié to create a public policy department. She joined Coudert from Willkie Farr & Gallagher in 1998. Ginestié is also bringing on board another former Coudert lawyer to head up its litigation […]
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) is to recruit two or three in-house lawyers in a bid to develop a separate legal capability to assist its enforcement regime. The creation of the new legal function, which will service the Regulatory Decisions Committee (RDC), has been proposed as part of a raft of reforms unveiled by the […]
Lovells’ M&A team scooped its largest deal of the year advising SABMiller on its $8bn merger with Columbia’s Grupo Empresarial Bavaria from the Santo Domingo Group. SABMiller has acquired a stake of 71.8 per cent in Bavaria and will issue 225 million of shares to the value of $3.5bn that will give the Santo Domingo […]
Clifford Chance has won a Court of Appeal ruling on behalf of client Jean Tigana, the former manager of Fulham Football Club, in his dispute with the club. The Court of Appeal this morning (Tuesday 19 July) handed down a unanimous decision dismissing Fulham’s appeal against a November 2004 High Court judgment finding that Tigana […]
Equitable Life has abandoned its £1.3bn ‘lost sale’ claim against former auditors Ernst & Young (E&Y), vastly reducing the amount claimed in the ongoing High Court litigation. The insurance society is still claiming over £700m from E&Y and over £1bn from former directors for negligence. At the beginning of July The Lawyer reported that Equitable […]
Davis Polk & Wardwell’s Paris office has poached Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s new co-head of M&A Arnaud Peres. Peres was named co-head of M&A in France only this month after the departure of corporate chief Patrick Bonvarlet on sabbatical. The hire of Peres is a rare lateral hire for Davis Polk and marks a significant U-turn […]