Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (BCLP) and Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) have acted on Blackstone’s £120m acquisition of a logistics portfolio from Clearbell Capital. BCLP acted for Clearbell from its London and Southampton offices, led by funds and investment management head Justin Cornelius and partner Kieran Saunders. Partners Claire Milton and Verity Waington advised on real […]
Addleshaw Goddard, Greenberg Traurig and Forsters have seen through the £80m sale of Ted Baker’s London HQ to the British Airways’ Pension Fund (BAPF). Addleshaws corporate M&A partners Simon Wood and Andrew Rosling acted for Ted Baker, alongside co-head of the firm’s real estate sector William Boss. The stricken retailer bought the 8,920 sq ft […]
Dentons has appointed a new head of UK real estate following the retirement of Virginia Glastonbury. Real estate partner Deepa Deb will head the UK practice group from 26 March. She takes on the mantle from real estate veteran Glastonbury, who headed the practice for six years and will retire after nearly 40 years at […]
Hammerson has appointed Debenhams’ former general counsel as its new legal chief. Alice Darwall will join the FTSE 100 shopping centre and outlets owner this month as GC and company secretary, following the departure of Sarah Booth. Darwall moves across from Debenhams, where she had been acting as interim GC and company secretary from April […]
Alternative asset classes and technology-related developments such as data centres are powering firms’ real estate practices and re-shaping the hot spots of demand in the UK and beyond, new data has confirmed. The findings in The Lawyer’s new Global Real Estate 50 report, coupled with insights direct from lawyers in some of the world’s largest […]
Within the space of five days from Monday 16 March, working from home (WFH) became the new normal for the vast majority of the population. Lives and habits changed instantly. You’ve probably already enjoyed at least one Zoom cocktail party, reacquainted yourself with your children and perhaps joined an online choir? From a legal market […]
The entire process of becoming a lawyer is time sensitive. Students progress through university and law school, taking exams in their due turn. Law firms hunt for new talent and offer jobs two years in advance. Trainees wheel through the rotation of seats and eventually apply for newly-qualified jobs. As the seasons turn so does […]
As companies continue to look to the government for survival in the coming weeks, restructuring practices across the City, which had been kept arguably lean until now, are sure to need extra hands in the coming months. Across law firms, corporate associates are poised to be drafted onto restructurings and workouts. The mass redeployment of […]
No 5 Chambers has retained its lead at the top of The Lawyer’s Bar Top 30, an annual ranking charting the headcount growth of the profession’s largest sets.
Last summer, one of The Lawyer’s cover stories focused on the UK mid-tier. It put forward the proposition that many of the firms outside the UK top 50 were ‘boiling frogs’ – surfing comfortably on the surprisingly small amount of growth needed to maintain market position without necessarily adapting to the slowly changing conditions that […]
In this episode The Lawyer editor Catrin Griffiths and deputy editor Matt Byrne discuss the impact of coronavirus, the latest US financials season, and whether law firms are actually listening to their clients on one of the biggest issues in the world today.
As 114 new silks celebrated their success in the 2020 Queen’s Counsel appointments, they were also marking the end of an arduous selection procedure – all for the honour, pride and privilege of securing those two prestigious letters that can reshape a legal career. Finally gaining the QC kitemark gives some barristers a sense of […]
After a blow to its tech credentials in Cambridge last year, Taylor Wessing has re-evaluated and is looking to the future with a new strategy.
It isn’t just the High Courts that are set for a busy year, with both the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court set to hear a range of cases, involving the likes of the Iranian Ministry of Defence, Secretary of State for the Home Department, Sports Direct and Mastercard. There’s plenty of work to go […]
By David Perry The recent Government consultation on ending no fault terminations of residential tenancies, which will effectively abolish assured shorthold tenancies, came to a close on 12 October. Many people will be looking to see what, if anything, results from that process. As a generational change in residential letting, many stakeholder groups are likely […]
By Jason Hayward Over the past two decades, title insurance has gained significant traction in Ontario as a means of providing front-end comfort to owners and lenders alike with respect to purchases and financings of real estate. For owners, a title insurance policy is intended to insure the registered owner’s interest in the land itself; […]
By Fergus Charlton On 24 July, the government released the long-anticipated revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). Setting the emphasis on building new homes, Secretary of State for Communities, the Rt Hon James Brokenshire MP said: “Fundamental to building the homes our country needs is ensuring that our planning system is fit for the future.” […]
Much focus has been given of late to gazumping and the potential pitfalls of the Jersey conveyancing process. Thankfully in practice the vast majority of transactions do eventually make it across the line and in most cases, completion occurs within the allocated window agreed through the estate agent at the outset. Gazumping, while a genuine […]
By Hugh Richards The Government has published its Housing White Paper “Fixing Our Broken Housing Market”. It will be recalled that in his speech to the party conference in October 2016, the Secretary of State, Sajid Javid, called for “unprecedented steps” to increase the delivery of new homes – his “number one priority” and a […]
The LMA has recently announced the publication of its own form of insurance broker letter for use on real estate finance investment transactions. Broker letters are used to provide comfort to lenders that the obligors are complying with their insurance obligations under the loan agreement, and that the lender (or agent, on syndicated transactions) will be made aware of any issues that arise with […]
By Nigel Lewis In our latest alert, we review the judgment in Larkfleet Ltd v Allison Homes Eastern Ltd which highlights the potentially significant liability implications arising from National House Building Council (NHBC) cover for contractors involved in residential developments. You may be on the hook in terms of possible liability for a lot longer […]