Enrico Bondi’s battle to be Parmalat’s worldwide special administrator was widened last week to Ireland, where he went head-to-head with the Bank of America’s lawyers Linklaters and Sidley Austin Brown & Wood. Bank of America is fighting for the liquidation of Parmalat’s Irish company, Eurofood IFSC, to be handled in Ireland. Weil Gotshal & Manges […]
Linklaters has elected Michael Lappe as its new German senior partner following the decision of incumbent Rudolf Colle to step down to concentrate on client work. Colle, who had served a three-year term in the post, will officially stand down on 30 April. Lappe, an M&A partner will divide his time equally between client work […]
Latham & Watkins’ Paris office has raided independent French firm Sokolow Dunaud Mercadier & Carreras for a nine-lawyer litigation team including name partner Patrick Dunaud. The Latham haul is another huge blow for Sokolow, which lost an 11-lawyer team, including another name partner Jean-Francois Mercadier, to Norton Rose at the end of 2003. Partners Emmanuel […]
Olswang is poised to bulk up its private equity team with the hire of two SJ Berwin partners Jonathan Pittal and Perry Yam. Over the course of the last couple of years Pittal has advised JP Morgan, Hamilton Lane, Nordea and Coal Pension Board on the establishment of investment fund products and the acquisition of […]
Howard Kennedy has won new client ING Real Estate Development with the hire of new partner Deborah Swanwick from Lawrence Graham. Swanwick was a senior assistant at Lawrence Graham, but she had been the lawyer acting for ING Real Estate. She previously advised the client on a shopping centre development in Milton Keynes between 1998 […]
Allen & Overy (A&O) partners have voted in favour of taking on Clifford Chance’s head of real estate funds and investment banking (Refib), Robert Porter. As first revealed by The Lawyer on 1 March, A&O partners were voting on Porter’s hire over the course of last week. The vote has now been completed and Porter […]
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) is fighting a legal decision it fears could make United States courts de facto global anti-trust regulators, even in cases with a negligible impact on the USA. It has filed an amicus curiae brief to the US Supreme Court, asking it to overturn a DC Court of Appeals ruling […]
An internet public consultation has been launched by the European Commission into a planned directive laying down clear rules on the transfer of a company’s registered office from one European Union (EU) country to another. EU internal market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein, said: “I encourage all businesses, associations and lawyers with an interest in company law […]
US firm Steptoe & Johnson has become the first firm to benefit from the dismantling of Oppenheimer Wolff & Donnelly’s European network. Steptoe has acquired the Brussels practice of Oppenheimer, which consists of three partners, one counsel and three associates. Last summer Oppenheimer announced that it was to cut its costs by selling its European […]
Clifford Chance Moscow co-managing partner Hermann Schmitt and tax partner Irinia Dmitrieva have moved to White & Case. Schmitt, a German real estate and corporate lawyer, has been with Clifford Chance Moscow for 10 years. Both partners take up their new roles at White & Case today, 2 March. The two hires bring the number […]
Lawyers are preparing for Europe’s ‘big bang’ on 1 May, when, as well as the accession of 10 new member states, a package of measures intended to modernise the existing European system of competition law will be introduced. Among these measures is a revision to the special exemption from competition rules, the Technology Transfer Block […]
Take a look at Clark Holt’s website and one page in particular is shocking. There, for all the world to see, is a statement of the firm’s fees. “Why not?” says managing partner Richard Clark. “We’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. We regard ourselves as a straight-down-the-line, transparent firm. Clients will pay if we’ve […]