The raid has left Baker & McKenzie with just three partners in its 20-lawyer Houston outpost. The departing partners – John Cogan, Duncan Gray, Kenneth Culotta and Philip Weems – all specialise in international transactions involving the energy industry and will join King & Spalding’s corporate group in the Houston office. A King & Spalding […]
The London-based firm’s two partners – Paul Turner and Roger Spencer – will join Clyde & Co as equity partners in an enlarged commodities group with all their staff. Turner & Co, set up by Turner and Spencer 15 years ago, is particularly prominent in the soft commodities sector, acting for international trading houses, especially […]
An LCD consultation paper suggests giving enforcers powers to find out about debtors’ assets from third parties and pursue ways of enforcing court decisions. Creditors must currently rely on a debtor’s willingness to reveal their assets, with little redress available if they refuse to co-operate. Officials are seeking a way to obtain such information from […]
When the UK and Irish governments introduced their respective bills governing e-commerce, they got very different receptions. Bal Khela finds that unless the UK bill is amended, the industry could lose a raft of business to Ireland Buying and selling over the internet has led to a dotcom revolution that has made e-commerce one of […]
My dear nephew James, congratulations on your Upper 2nd in Economics. I understand you are keen to train with a’Big Five’ accountancy firm and you would like some advice, so here goes. The “Big Five” are going through a period of significant change. No sooner have these global firms been assembled than they are being […]
I always start off a noisy game of tickling or “let’s play 101 Dalmations” whenever a certain advert comes on the telly. It’s the one where Smarmy Man One beats Smarmy Man Two to his boss’ eternal affections by working on a report at the weekend and emailing it out before Monday rolls around. At […]
FIFA v the European Union. Football’s governing body has been threatened with antitrust action unless it changes its rules concerning player transfer fees and contracts between players and their clubs. The European Commission has told FIFA that it must give players the freedom to break contracts and the flexibility to switch teams before their contracts […]
UK employees have fewer rights than those on the continent. Mark Humphries says this may change. The draft EU Bill of Rights has generated much comment in the press recently, most notably concerning the impact on our constitutional system. But the danger of overlooking more obvious problems, such as those that arise in the workplace, […]
Superintendent Ray Mallon, the pioneer of zero tolerance policing in the UK, has learned that he will not face criminal charges after a £5m investigation into how the so-called ‘Robocop’ squad got information from the Teesside underworld. Mallon, whose drive against petty crime and anti-social behaviour has influenced Home Secretary Jack Straw’s own liberal pronouncements, […]
In a week when the profession gathers to honour its biggest names, heaviest hitters and largest deals at The Lawyer Awards, it is fitting to celebrate the profession’s contribution to the booming economy, but also to pause and reflect that booms have a nasty habit of coming to an end. The big firms are barely […]
Eagle-eyed police. The prosecutor in the case of obsessive collector of bird’s eggs, Keith Hartburn, paid tribute to the boys in blue’s razor sharp investigative skills that had led to Hartburn’s arrest. Mark Styles, a member of the prosecution, said:”He was caught as the result of dedicated police work which resulted in him being recognised […]
“We are a very irreverent department. I’m a mad, cake-fetish, fatty person. We’ve got cake and chocolate. We are the fat piggy department.” – A very contented Riccardo Nardi, head of legal at the Association of British Travel Agents, as quoted in a penetrating article in the Law Society’s internal magazine the Law Society’s Gazette