The Lawyer Default Issue

FINANCING

This section can be summarised by one question: how do companies get finance when bank lending remains stagnant? After the credit crunch rocked the money markets in 2008 ­traditional forms of financing became scarce. Despite net bank lending to businesses rising by £4.4bn in January 2011 – after a massive £34bn drop the month before […]

INTRODUCTION

The genesis of our In-house Thought Leaders ­project can be traced back to our annual summit for in-house lawyers last year, when we eavesdropped on conversations among delegates. Whatever sector those lawyers were operating in we found that a consistent set of non-industry-specific topics animated them, from workplace issues or reputation to regulation or data […]

RELOCATION

Relocating a head office can be both ­controversial and complex. Yet a steady stream of companies continue to quit the UK – and, anecdotally at least, it appears that many more are considering a move. A ­handful of industries have long been ­associated with ­offshore locations, such as insurance, ­reinsurance, hedge funds and online betting. […]

Relocation: Yahoo!

Grainne Brankin Yahoo! first announced it was relocating its European headquarters in March 2008. The 18-month project saw the internet giant move from its Shaftesbury Avenue offices in Central London to Rolle on the shore of Lake Geneva, in the Swiss canton of Vaud. Yahoo! Europe then became Yahoo! Sarl (Société à ­Responsabilité Limitée). Its […]

Relocation: Informa

John Burton Informa, the FTSE250 publishing group behind Lloyd’s List and Datamonitor, relocated to Switzerland in 2009. But informal discussions had been ongoing since 2006, says ­company secretary and general ­counsel John Burton. “I work quite closely with our group tax director [Bas ter Balkt],” says Burton. “He joined us through an acquisition and that […]

REGULATION

The financial crisis has had a wide-ranging effect on many facets of life. For financial services ­businesses, one of the most ­significant and ­lasting impacts will be on the way they are regulated. Since the collapse of Lehman Brothers had such a profound ­ripple effect on markets, policymakers have turned the spotlight on areas including […]

Regulation: MetLife

Stephanie Fuller Next year the European insurance industry faces its biggest shake-up in decades. By the end of 2012 the EU’s Solvency II Directive is expected to go live after almost four years of proposals, counter-proposals, consultations and political wrangling. Solvency II will change the way insurance companies operate. It was first mooted in the […]

IP RIGHTS

Protecting brands is one of the biggest ­challenges facing general counsel today. Protecting brands is one of the biggest ­challenges facing general counsel today. There are myriad ways that IP can be infringed, and as ­companies continue to expand into less ­developed markets, rights become even ­harder to enforce. In some cases, lawyers have to […]

Regulation: KPMG

Vanessa Sharp When US banking group Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008, the ramifications were felt worldwide. But for the normally sedate accountancy profession, it ­represented a particularly ­violent jolt. As when energy group Enron went bust in 2001, auditors were thrust into the spotlight. Enron’s auditor Arthur Andersen was unable to ­survive, but this time round there […]

Regulation: Marshall Wace

Jon May In recent months there has been a lot of talk in the asset management industry about a trend towards alternative fund managers shifting their products onshore and away from offshore ­jurisdictions such as the Cayman Islands. Much of this talk has been just talk. But in April 2010 Marshall Wace, one of the […]

WORKPLACE

In an environment where redundancies have become more common, employment law has been thrown into sharper focus than ever before. Both the current and previous ­governments have been pushing through changes to employment legislation, culminating in the Equality Act 2010. Unlike some legislative changes that only affect a certain sector or industry, no company can […]