Clifford Chance corporate finance partner Alex Erasmus is to join a blockchain software company later this year as its new chief legal officer. London-based Erasmus will join the executive committee of Block.one in Hong Kong. Block.one is the software publisher behind open-source blockchain protocol EOSIO, which was launched in June 2018 and provides secure and […]
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has withdrawn the arrest warrant it had issued against the chief executive of the Eurasian Resources Group, in the latest development to the agency’s long-running investigation into its subsidiary company ENRC. Last month, the SFO announced that ERG’s CEO Benedikt Sobotka was wanted for alleged refusal to comply to an […]
Another magic circle partner is to join Latham & Watkins in London, as it sets its sights on winning work in the infrastructure M&A market. Allen & Overy partner Conrad Andersen, who was promoted in 2008, is to join Clifford Chance partner Brendan Moylan at the US firm. The latter’s move was revealed yesterday. While […]
Fieldfisher is to open a legal support centre in Belfast, years after firms such as Herbert Smith Freehills, Baker McKenzie and Allen & Overy made similar moves in the Northern Irish capital. Fieldfisher says it expects to house 125 personnel in Belfast within the next three years, with 14 people having already been recruited. The office […]
Allen & Overy (A&O) has announced its autumn 2018 trainee retention figures, with 80 per cent of its 46 qualifiers staying on. With a total intake of 46, 44 trainees applied to qualify, 40 of whom were offered newly qualified positions. Overall, 37 trainees accepted the offers. “This is a good result and one which […]
Clifford Chance’s infrastructure M&A head Brendan Moylan is leaving the firm for Latham & Watkins in a move that reunites him with his former magic circle colleagues. Latham aggressively hired from Clifford Chance’s private equity practice in 2013/14 when it took on David Walker, Kem Ihenacho and Tom Evans. The US firm was said to have been […]
Software company Mozilla, the company behind the Firefox browser, has brought in a new general counsel from social media giant Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters. Amy Keating will join Mozilla in early September after six years as Twitter’s deputy general counsel. She replaces Jishnu Menon, who left for Netflix in May. The move will be Keating’s latest […]
Burges Salmon is making technology a priority with a new raft of appointments and investments aimed at revolutionising legal service delivery. The firm’s Business Solutions team is set to welcome former senior associate Emma Sorrell as legal innovation specialist and former integration specialist Ian Huddart as technology innovation specialist. It has also subscribed to powerhouse […]
Lawyers from RPC have had their actions described as falling “someway short of what competent solicitors would have done” as a district court judge in Leeds declined the firm’s application to throw out a professional negligence claim against it. RPC had been advising the founder of tech company Stayput Solutions Deborah Forster during her protracted legal […]
Kirkland & Ellis has won a first-time mandate from struggling DIY chain Homebase, which earlier today confirmed it was planning a company voluntary arrangement (CVA). Homebase is the latest retailer to announce such a move and follows in the wake of similar CVAs entered into by New Look, Prezzo and Mothercare. A CVA can be used by […]
Weil Gotshal & Manges and Slaughter and May have advised on the £1.2bn buyout of esure to Bain Capital in one of the largest insurance deals of the year so far. Slaughters led for esure, the owner of insurance brand Sheilas’ Wheels and former owner of price comparison website Gocompare.com. The deal team was led by corporate […]
Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang and Womble Bond Dickinson are acting on a joint venture between Boxpark and Quintain to create a sprawling 50,000sq ft food, beverage and events complex in Wembley Park. CMS advised property investment and development company Quintain, led by real estate partner Marie Scott and associate Richard Cameron. Quintain is leading the Wembley […]
Royal Mail, advised by a team from Ashurst, has been unable to fend off a £50m fine from Ofcom, after an investigation into the business’s practices in 2014 found the delivery giant had “abused its dominant position in bulk mail delivery”. Three-partner firm Towerhouse advised Whistl, then known as TNT, which was trying to break into […]
Brick Court Chambers has announced a reshuffling of its clerking structure after its senior clerking vanguard of Julian Hawes and Ian Moyler were replaced by Tony Burgess and Paul Dennison. Hawes will stay on at Brick Court where he will become its director of clerking, while Moyler has left the set after four decades to […]
Research from The Lawyer shows that South Square has been instructed by the magic circle on 64 matters since 2015.
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer restructuring partner Nick Segal is switching private practice for the Bar, taking on a new role at Erskine Chambers. Segal is set to join the chambers as a barrister in September, after he has been successfully admitted to the Bar. Segal joined Freshfields in 2006 on his return to the UK from […]
The Criminal Bar Association (CBA)’s feud with the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has ended with 51.55 per cent of members voting to accept the £15m offer that was put to them two weeks ago. The offer was accepted through a slim majority voting in favour of the reforms with an 85 per cent turnout from […]
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has offered the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) £15m as the government entity seeks to end the increasingly tense standoff between the two bodies. The deal is said to be an entirely new investment and will include an £8m cash injection for barristers who have lost money through a change in […]
Clifford Chance’s Perth managing partner has left the firm for Norton Rose Fulbright in the latest high-profile exit from the magic circle firm’s Australian office. Paul Lingard, a partner in Clifford Chance’s mining group, is moving over to Norton Rose Fulbright, alongside Herbert Smith Freehills executive counsel Miriam D’Souza. She too is joining Norton Rose’s corporate […]
Ahead of the Business Leadership Summit in association with Propero, PLMJ’s Luís Miguel Pais Antunes discusses innovation in law firms.
Dentons has encroached further into South America through a merger with Chilean firm Larrain Rencoret Urzua (LRU). The latest tie-up comes three months after Dentons became the first global firm to enter Hawaii, following a merger with independent player Alston Hunt Floyd & Ing, which saw it add almost 50 lawyers to the firm’s US platform. […]
Months after agreeing a new tie-up in Hong Kong, CMS has increased lawyer headcount in the region after snaring an eight-lawyer team from RPC. Partners Andrew Horton and Steven Wise are leading the move to CMS, which earlier this year struck up a new association with Hong Kong firm Shirley Lau & Co increasing its capacity to offer […]
Cooley is beefing up its Beijing office with newly-appointed partner Henry Yin from Kirkland & Ellis. Yin was previously a Hong Kong partner at Kirkland & Ellis, which he joined in 2014, and started his career at Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom’s New York office in 2009. He deals with corporate matters such as […]
Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan has lost its place as the top-ranked firm for disputes income, after another US giant posted a total litigation revenue of nearly $1.3bn. Kirkland & Ellis has secured the number one spot for the first time, after posting a total disputes revenue of $1.266bn. Rank 2018 Rank 2017 Firm Disputes […]
Lawyers see the increasing flexibility of fund structuring in the country as a big draw in light of the Brexit vote
With growth in London far from reliable for law firms, is it time for Europe to take more of a leading role?
Business confidence and investor interest have been on the rise in South Africa since the election of a new president.
Jones Day has snared two finance partners from Ashurst and Dentons following a raft of exits from its London office since the start of the year. Partner Ewen Scott left Ashurt’s global loans group last week and will join Jones Day’s banking, finance and securities practice at the end of August. He will be joined by Dentons finance partner Lee […]
Dechert has continued its hiring spree in London, hiring new partner Robert Darwin from Hogan Lovells. Darwin joins a growing team and is the third strategic lateral hire since April. In June, Roger Burlingame joined the firm’s global investigations and white collar crime practice from Kobre & Kim. In July, Dorothy Cory-Wright joined as head […]
Clifford Chance has hired former associate Victor Levy from DLA Piper as a corporate partner into its New York private funds group three years after he left the magic circle firm. Levy began his career with Clifford Chance in 2003, spending nine years as an associate before decamping to DLA Piper as a counsel in June […]
White & Case has drafted in two new litigation partners from Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (BCLP) and Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft. International arbitration partner David Robertson has joined the firm from BCLP, while commercial litigation partner Steven Baker will also boost the practice after his arrival from Cadwalader. Baker – whose practice focuses largely on […]
Millar to join Foot Anstey’s Bristol office “to deliver hands on, commercial legal advice to clients” using his significant experience gained in-house
Morgan Lewis & Bockius has nabbed a seven partner intellectual property litigation team from McDermott Will & Emery, who will be spread between three of its US offices. The IP hiring spree sees five of the new partners – Jeff Gargano, Krista Vink Venegas, Shon Lo, Hersh Mehta and Kevin Shortsle – take up residence in Morgan Lewis’s […]
Restructuring duo Yen Sum and Jennifer Brennan are leaving Sidley Austin after less than two years, swapping the US firm for Latham & Watkins‘ London office. Sum decamped from Linklaters to Sidley at the end of 2016 and was quickly followed by Brennan, then a managing associate at the magic circle firm. The pair join […]
Litigation funder Vannin Capital has hired Fountain Court Chambers deputy senior clerk Paul Martenstyn as managing director and he will join its London office this October. Martenstyn has spent the last decade at Fountain Court, joining in 2008 as a clerk before being named to his current role three years later. Prior to joining the […]
Reed Smith has reinvigorated its Middle East practice, six months after the firm lost a team of construction lawyers to Eversheds Sutherland. Pinsent Masons’ former head of the Middle East region, Sachin Kerur, has been brought over to lead Reed Smith’s Dubai and Abu Dhabi office, having led Pinsents’ offering since 2008. He will be joined […]
Benoit Lavigne becomes Morrison & Foerster’s third London lateral hire of the year.
Mayer Brown has hired two partners from Norton Rose Fulbright’s London office as the firm looks to strengthen its global white-collar and investigations practice. Norton Rose Fulbright head of business ethics and anti-corruption Sam Eastwood will join the firm on 20 August, while dispute resolution and investigations partner Jason Hungerford joins Mayer Brown with immediate […]
Dechert has completed the mass hire of 29 lawyers from Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan’s product liability team in the US. The group has been joining since the end of May, after the arrival of Quinn’s product liability co-chairs Sheila Birnbaum and Mark Cheffo. The pair made the move with fellow partner Douglas Fleming, another […]
By Maria Connolly At the end of July, the Draft Registration of Overseas Entities Bill was published. The intention is that, from 2021, overseas entities wanting to deal in certain UK property will have to register in the overseas entities register (OER). Why will overseas entities have to register?
By Adrian Mansbridge As outlined in our previous articles covering what lies ahead for high rise regulation and the proposed ban on flammable cladding the legislative programme to implement the recommendations of the Hackitt review and to address broader concerns is already underway. However, as anticipated, political concerns have already led to these proposals being “beefed up”…
By Alex Towers With cybertheft and data breaches becoming an increasingly common occurrence, the need to rapidly and accurately identify fraud has driven the development of behavioural biometrics as a means to target automated attacks and suspicious transactions. However, for the technology to function, companies must amass libraries of biometric personal data to construct profiles…
By Rebecca MacCann What happens if you assign your right to litigate to a person or company that is unconnected to the event that creates the right to litigate? In the recent Supreme Court case of SPV Osus Ltd v HSBC Institutional Trust Services (Ireland) Limited & Ors [2018] IESC 44, the Supreme Court held […]
By Pedro Simões Coelho, Ricardo Seabra Moura and Carlos Filipe Couto How is fund management regulated in your jurisdiction? Which authorities have primary responsibility for regulating funds, fund managers and those marketing funds?
On 16 August 2018, Mr Justice Popplewell discharged a $3 billion proprietary and freezing injunction (“WFO”) against the Defendants, Mr José Dos Santos, Mr Jean-Claude Bastos de Morais (“Mr Bastos”), and the Quantum Global group of companies. This is a very important judgment on the requirements for freezing orders, especially the duty of full and […]
By Shaimerden Chikanayev Kazakhstan has high ambitions in China’s Belt and Road initiative (BRI) as it is geographically an ideal junction between China and the west. There may, however, be some roadblocks for the BRI’s projects in Kazakhstan. It is therefore important to examine past experiences in order to be able to predict what legal […]
By Bakhyt Tukulov In early July this year we witnessed the opening of the Astana International Financial Center (AIFC). We have seen a large number of reports in the media on the Court and Arbitration at the AIFC, but little has been said specifically on what exactly they can offer to Kazakhstani businesses. We observe increasing […]
In a review of a recent judgment of the United Kingdom Supreme Court, which overturned longstanding precedent on No Oral Modification clauses, partner Ben Hobden and associate Spencer Vickers of Conyers Dill & Pearman in the Cayman Islands and the decision will provide welcome certainty on contracts…
The first six months of 2018 have been notably buoyant for Ireland’s mergers and acquisitions (M&A) market. Dealmakers were kept busy with a pipeline of transactions, in a continuation of the active market that was evident last year…
By Kerry Gwyther 2018 has been a particularly challenging year for retailers so far, combining tough trading conditions with digital disruption and major legal and regulatory changes. Our Retail Risk Report, now in its fourth year, is a single point of reference to help retailers understand the legal and regulatory changes taking place in 2018 […]
By Tom George, Daniel Wood and Cathy Moore In times of economic and/or political uncertainty, parties to construction contracts may consider whether they have a right to rely on force majeure provisions as a justification for temporarily or permanently failing to perform substantive obligations. We review the recent decision in Seadrill Ghana Operations Ltd v Tullow Ghana […]
