In a fortnight that has so far seen Winston & Strawn hire a four-strong corporate team from DLA Piper in Hong Kong; Berwin Leighton Paisner enter into an association in Indonesia; and Wragge Lawrence Graham end its association in Singapore with PK Wong & Associates, Clifford Chance’s Asia managing partner Peter Charlton also spoke to Legal Business …
The $14.2bn acquisition of Merck’s consumer care business by German pharmaceutical giant Bayer has spun out roles for a clutch of leading US law firms, as Sullivan & Cromwell advises longstanding client Bayer opposite Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson; Morgan, Lewis & Bockius; and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton for Merck.
Channel 5’s £450m sale to Viacom has thrown up roles for Rosenblatt Solicitors; a London-based Shearman & Sterling team; Olswang and Lewis Silkin as the US broadcasting giant snaps up the UK’s only privately owned commercial television channel.
In an embarrassing setback for the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) in its long running dispute over legal aid with the Bar, a Crown court judge today (1 January) halted a costly publicly funded serious fraud trial after the defendants failed to find representation.
DLA Piper has promoted 45 lawyers to its partnership, a 33% increase on last year. The lion’s share of promotions fell to the US, effective from 1 January this year, where 21 associates were made up to partner.
‘You can’t be a credible financial centre without having a credible Islamic finance programme,’ says Qudeer Latif, head of Clifford Chance’s global Islamic practice. With studies expecting the Muslim population to grow twice as fast as the non-Muslim demographic over the next 20 years global financial institutions and governments are falling over themselves to offer …
Continue reading “Behind the veil – Can Islamic finance live up to the sales pitch?”
After two rounds of failed merger talks Davenport Lyons went into administration at the end of April, with Mayfair firm Gordon Dadds confirming that it had taken on the client database, the majority of assets and secured nearly all of the partners of the West End firm. The terms of the sale were agreed the …
Continue reading “Davenport Lyons goes into administration as Gordon Dadds takes on business”
Holcim/Lafarge merger and Vivendi’s SFR acquisition lead the way Corporate partners are forecasting the next big European M&A wave after deal values this quarter shot up, partly on the back of ready debt finance and growing market confidence. Such conditions have supported a run of lucrative mandates, including the €40bn merger in April of cement …
Continue reading “European deal wave anticipated amid growing market confidence”
King & Wood Mallesons SJ Berwin (KWMSJB) yesterday (30 April) announced the hire of former Allen & Overy antitrust and competition partner Martin Bechtold to its Frankfurt office, as globally the Sino-Pacific-UK giant promoted a total of 26 lawyers to partner, including nine in Europe.
Slaughter and May has again become the first major City player to announce changes to its junior fee-earners’ pay levels, with a marginal rise in salary for first year trainees and increases for newly-qualified lawyers (NQs) of up to 3%.
