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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Mishcon de Reya more than doubled the top line of its New York office over 2017/18, bucking a three-year trend of declining revenues in the firm’s sole office outside of London. Revenues dropped 64 per cent between 2014/15 and 2016/17 from a high of £6.7m to £2.4m. However, the firm’s fortunes reversed in the US in the […]
Over a year into its tripartite merger with Nabarro and Olswang, CMS is plotting further growth in its in-house technology business to cut down on time-intensive data tasks in its litigation department. Unit leader Chris Baldwin told The Lawyer it expects to grow its litigation technology unit, CMS Evidence, by nearly eight-fold in the next three […]
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 […]
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. […]
Ince & Co international senior partner Jan Heuvels has resigned from his role at the firm, six months before the completion of his first term in charge. Heuvels was elected to the role in November 2014, beginning his role the following January. Having resigned from the role, he will now oversee the firm’s growth plan […]
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 […]
A host of firms, including Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and RPC, have been on call this morning following the news that Sports Direct’s Mike Ashley is to buy House of Fraser through a pre-pack administration. The collapse marks the end of 169 years of solvent trading and puts 17,500 jobs at risk. A team from Freshfields […]
Legal advisers working on the high-stakes bidding war for Sky are set to pick up fees of around £65m, according to documents published by competing bidders 21st Century Fox and Comcast. Allen & Overy (A&O) is set to pick up £20m in fees for its work advising 21st Century Fox in the high-stakes bidding war with […]
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.
Backhouse Jones, alongside Addleshaw Goddard, has filed an application on behalf of 3,500 clients in proceedings against nine truck manufacturers which, if successful, could be worth as much as £5bn. The two firms have filed the joint application for a collective proceedings order (CPO) with the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT). Should the CAT give the […]
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 […]
Ahead of the Business Leadership Summit in association with Propero, PLMJ’s Luís Miguel Pais Antunes discusses innovation in law firms.
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 […]
Reed Smith has announced its move to a new office in Singapore, the latest in its increasing expansion in Southeast Asia. The law firm has moved its Singapore hub to a bigger space located inside the Ocean Financial Centre building in Raffles Place to accommodate an ever-increasing team as part of a long-term commitment to […]
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer‘s former head of London corporate Simon Marchant is to take on a new role in Australia, advising on law firm strategy. Marchant, who is retiring from the magic circle firm this summer, is to take on an advisory role at Australian firm Clayton Utz from October. He is expected to work for […]
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.
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 […]
Dechert has hired its first lateral partner in Dubai for over 18 months, after taking on two real estate lawyers from its US rival King & Spalding. King & Spalding partner Stephen Kelly is joining Dechert. He will be joined by counsel Sarah Mahood who joins as a national partner. Prior to King & Spalding, […]
Walker Morris’ Housing and Banking Litigation experts Karl Anders, Justin Coley and Sandip Singh explain the UK government’s consultation on introducing longer-term tenancies in the private rented sector, with a particular focus on potential impacts for lenders…
The results of a large-scale survey by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in 2017 indicated, among other things, that: 75% of UK adults had one or more consumer credit products or loans in the previous 12 months; 4.1 million people were “in difficulty” because they had already failed to pay domestic bills or meet credit […]
By Miles Trower London is, arguably, the most important global hub for financial services. As a result, the consequences of the Brexit vote, the ensuing uncertainty and the eventual transitional and regulatory framework applying to UK financial services and how it will continue to access overseas markets has been subject to huge speculation. Much of […]
By Russell Kelsall On 7 August 2018, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published a consultation on the creation of a Global Financial Innovation consultation. With innovation in the global financial services market rapidly increasing, it is important for firms to consider the options for building, implementing and sharing experiences of digital solutions.
At the end of July, the Austrian Data Protection Authority (‘DPA’) published its first decision on retention periods applying the General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’; DSB-D216.471/0001-DSB/2018). The decision is final. The DPA had to decide for which period a provider of telecommunications services (hereinafter: the ‘controller’) may (respectively must) retain so-called master data, required for […]
By Michael Feit Switzerland has a long-standing tradition to serve as the seat for international disputes. Thanks to its very arbitration friendly legal framework, and overall encouraging factors such as Switzerland’s neutrality, stability and business-friendly environment, Switzerland has remained a top choice for international arbitration for parties from all over the world…
By Irina Radu One of the major objectives of the EU is reducing the vulnerabilities of critical infrastructure and increasing their resilience. An adequate level of protection must be ensured and the harmful effects of disruptions on the society and citizens must be limited as far as possible. Critical infrastructures extend across many sectors of the […]
By Gelu Maravela and Daniel Alexie Depending on the size of the operator, the frequency of processing activities, and the character of the data that is processed, keeping records of all processing activity should be deemed necessary for a considerable number of operators. From our point of view, only operators that process personal data in […]
On 2 July 2018, Kazakhstan adopted the Law No. 166VI “On amendments and changes to certain legislative acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Insurance and Insurance Activities, the Securities Market” (the “Law”). The Law entered into force on 15 July 2018 (with the exception of certain provisions, which will come into force later). Among […]
By Dorottya Gindl The Hungarian Parliament has recently adopted legislation with the aim of harmonising the national data protection rules with the rules of the GDPR, and supplementing the national rules in areas not regulated by the GDPR. The Parliament adopted Act XXXVIII of 2018 (“Amendment“) in an extraordinary session and the new regulations entered […]
By Mark Braude A significant and welcome change to the Entrepreneurs’ Relief (ER) rules was announced in the Finance Bill 2019 last month. It is aimed at shareholders who would otherwise lose their entitlement to ER as a result of being diluted below the 5% required shareholding…
By Alanna Tregear The Financial Conduct Authority (the FCA) said, as part of its 2018/2019 Business Plan, it wished to investigate the effectiveness and impact of its interventions into certain markets and industries. The FCA intends to conduct three pilot evaluations, the first being an evaluation of the FCA’s September 2015 intervention into GAP insurance. […]
