Football is becoming more soap opera than sport and each character in the cast has their own legal team backing them up. As money pours into the game from sponsorship and media deals, the stakes have increased along with the legal complexities. The story of manager Mark Hughes’s contract negotiations with his new club Manchester […]
Sonnenschein and Cadwalader got plaudits for being open about their redundancies. Others were more coy. Which is best: transparency or stealth? The beauty of law firms has traditionally been their counter-cyclical nature. The presence of a hefty litigation or arbitration group has provided a natural hedge against a market crash in any particular transactional business […]
At face value, dealing with electronic evidence may seem no different to any other, but there are some serious pitfalls for the unwary or unprepared. As lawyers prepare for a wave of post-credit crunch litigation, those whose contentious skills have become a little rusty during the boom years will find that one aspect of dispute […]
Ten years on from the introduction of Lord Woolf’s new civil procedure rules, the verdict on their efficacy is still coming in, while uncertainty remains over whether further reforms are needed. The Woolf reforms in the form of the civil procedure rules (CPR) have entered their tenth year since the then Lord Chancellor Baron Irvine […]
A recent Court of Appeal judgment offers commercial contract drafters some potentially valuable insights into what might constitute an unreasonable exclusion clause. It is always difficult for commercial contract drafters to know when an exclusion clause goes too far and might be struck out as being unreasonable under the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 (UCTA). […]
The Health and Safety Executive has estimated that 13.8 million working days are lost due to work related stress each year with an annual cost to employers of £13 billion. Many more working days are lost to other mental health illnesses. Statistics like these prompted the government to announce recently that it would spend £5 […]
The Scottish father who owns the narnia.mobi domain name insists that it was a present for his 11-year-old son despite the fact that he owns 78 other domain names. The Scottish father who owns the narnia.mobi domain name disputed by the CS Lewis estate has claimed that he isn’t making any money from it and […]
Davenport Lyons won a favourable decision from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for its client, Bond Street suit maker Sartoriani, allowing it to advertise its suits as “bespoke” even though they have not been made on Savile Row. Unlike Savile Row suits, Sartoriani’s suits are not made entirely by hand but are cut by machine. […]
Clifford Chance scoops landmark Goldman Sachs SIV bailout” />Clifford Chance is advising Goldman Sachs on its groundbreaking restructuring series of structured investment vehicles (SIVs). Lovells has joined Clifford Chance on several of these high profile SIV restructurings. A source close to the deal said: “The reason it is so high profile is because people have […]
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has appointed its first chief executive for Her Majesty’s Courts Service (HMCS) since it announced the new court structure in January. HMCS North West regional director Chris Mayer has been appointed to the chief executive post, succeeding Sir Ronald De Witt who held the role for four years. Justice Secretary […]
Stephenson Harwood has helped a Kuwaiti sovereign wealth fund take advantage of the cheaper prices offered by the market downturn and buy an environmentally-friendly office block. The law firm has advised longstanding client St Martins Property Investments, part of the Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA), on the £400m acquisition of the recently-developed Willis Building in the […]
DLA Piper has scored a role in one of the biggest pharmaceutical deals of the year, lining up alongside Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom in the $6.7bn (£3.4bn) merger of US biotechnology suppliers Invitrogen and the Applera Corporation. DLA Piper acted for the buyer, Invitrogen, led by San Diego-based relationship partners Jeff Baglio and […]