Welcome to this week’s edition of The Hearing, your weekly insider’s guide to the UK litigation market. The new Serious Fraud Office (SFO) chief gave his first speech since taking office, giving the broadsheets a raft of headlines about paying whistle-blowers. Corporate and white collar crime investigations lawyers have been short of work in recent […]
Pharma wars: Hampshire firm takes on Aspirin producer An IP battle has begun between Hampshire-headquartered Aspire Pharma and German behemouth Bayer after the former filed a part 7 ‘patents and registered designs’ claim on Wednesday 7 February. Bayer is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, responsible for products including Aspirin, Claritin and Rennie, […]
With Valentine’s Day around the corner, we’re feeling romantic at The Lawyer. As shops and restaurants cash in on flower sales and candlelit dinners, law firms are approaching “pre-nup season.” For this week’s Spotlight, we put Withers’ family and divorce team under the microscope. The market: “There’s always gossip in the family law world”, says […]
Welcome to this week’s edition of The Hearing. This week, we tell you why climate lawyers are talking about a case in New Zealand, and we dive into the data of this year’s Top 10 Appeals. But first, perceived threats to London’s place in international litigation have grown in recent years. Now, two leaders are […]
Welcome to this week’s edition of The Hearing, your weekly insider’s guide to the UK litigation market. The new Serious Fraud Office (SFO) chief gave his first speech since taking office, giving the broadsheets a raft of headlines about paying whistle-blowers. Corporate and white collar crime investigations lawyers have been short of work in recent […]
Pharma wars: Hampshire firm takes on Aspirin producer An IP battle has begun between Hampshire-headquartered Aspire Pharma and German behemouth Bayer after the former filed a part 7 ‘patents and registered designs’ claim on Wednesday 7 February. Bayer is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, responsible for products including Aspirin, Claritin and Rennie, […]
With Valentine’s Day around the corner, we’re feeling romantic at The Lawyer. As shops and restaurants cash in on flower sales and candlelit dinners, law firms are approaching “pre-nup season.” For this week’s Spotlight, we put Withers’ family and divorce team under the microscope. The market: “There’s always gossip in the family law world”, says […]
Welcome to this week’s edition of The Hearing. This week, we tell you why climate lawyers are talking about a case in New Zealand, and we dive into the data of this year’s Top 10 Appeals. But first, perceived threats to London’s place in international litigation have grown in recent years. Now, two leaders are […]
Children’s legal charity takes on the MoJ In a new filing on Friday (02 January), legal charity Just for Kids Law (JfKL) has put in a part 7 procurement claim against the Ministry of Justice. In its day-to-day work, JfKL works to directly provide legal representation and advice for children and young people dealing with […]
In-house lawyers are contending with major resourcing issues that is preventing them from doing their job effectively. This is the conclusion of major new research from alternative legal provider, Axiom, which found the in-house market stacked with challenges. In the wake of the Post Office Horizon Public Inquiry, which has put the reputation of the […]
The scene: A US firm boardroom, somewhere not in New York*. Big Cheese (furiously): ‘We’re not growing fast enough. What have you got?’ Smaller Cheese (panicking): Private equity! That’s the thing! Kirkland! Paul Weiss!’ Big Cheese: ‘Do whatever it takes. And do it now.’ Smaller Cheese: ‘Leave it with me. We’ll hire big in London. […]
Some US firms in London tend to get all the headlines, and as you know who they are, we won’t bother namechecking them again. But there are others, a tad more under the radar, that have had a barnstorming year in 2023 and whose time in the limelight is now. Such as Willkie Farr & […]
The latest newly-qualified (NQ) salary rise from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer still managed to raise interest last week, despite the fact enormous pay hikes are the new normal these days and that even £150,000 isn’t unusual any more (as of last week, Quinn’s £180,000 tops the market alongside Gibson Dunn). But it is still significant because […]
European firms see more value in having a physical office in the Square Mile than they do in the Big Apple. Last week, Spanish firm Uría Menéndez became the latest to shut up shop in New York, having been there for 30 years. Uría was the final member of Slaughter and May’s fabled Best Friends […]
RPC is set to defend gaming company Valve in a class action launched by Milberg London in the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT). The action is brought by class representative and children’s digital rights campaigner Vicki Shotbolt, who set up social enterprise Parent Zone, on behalf of around 14 million UK consumers. She alleges the class […]
Slaughter and May is leading for the owner of Royal Mail, which is poised to accept a takeover bid from Czech-owned EP Group (EP). EP’s bid values International Distribution Services (IDS) at approximately £3.5bn. Slaughters’ corporate team for IDS is led by partners Richard Smith and Claire Jackson. Kirkland & Ellis is leading for EP […]
A capital markets team from Linklaters is taking the lead in the expected London Stock Exchange listing of British single-board computer developer Raspberry Pi. Under the leadership of equities global chair and capital markets partner Jason Manketo, the firm is working with both the Cambridge-headquartered chip maker and its non-profit subsidiary over the process of […]
Bird & Bird has announced it will be opening a new office in Tokyo with the hire of Ashurst partner Hiro Iwamura. The primary purpose of the office will be to support the firm’s Japanese clients in the renewable energy, life sciences and technology space with outbound work across Europe, the Middle East and Asia […]
Goodwin Procter has given its Luxembourg office the early moving-in present of a new partner, hiring European 100 firm AKD’s co-head of investment funds. The US firm is bringing in Virginie Leroy to strengthen its European funds practice. Leroy spent more than four years at AKD, having joined from Canadian firm DSL in March 2020. […]
