Getting a legal merger over the line is notoriously difficult but once the tie-up is agreed it usually goes through, happily or not. One rare exception to that rule has emerged today (11 December) with the announcement that the 153-partner Kennedys has abandoned its agreed takeover of Scots practice Simpson & Marwick.
The deal comes after 18 months of negotiations and a formal announcement of the union in the summer.
The sensitive issue of governance has hung over Hogan Lovells since the 2010 merger that created the Anglo-American giant but the firm is to finally resolve the point in favour of a streamlined leadership model.
The dual UK-US leadership of Hogan Lovells is to come to an end with joint chief executives Warren Gorrell and David Harris set to stand down from their respective roles in June 2014. Harris is to retire from the firm, while Gorrell will return to full-time fee-earning.
In a move away from the UK/US joint leadership that has been in place since Hogan & Hartson and Lovells merged in 2010, Washington DC-based partner Stephen Immelt (pictured) has been chosen take the reins as sole CEO, while London-based partner David Hudd will become deputy CEO.
After years of rejecting the need for a City presence – and subsequent years hunting for a major London deal – Midlands giant Wragge & Co has finalised its tie-up with Lawrence Graham.
The proposed deal, which was confirmed last month, was backed in a partner vote earlier this week, with the combined firm set to unify as Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co from 1 May 2014.
With a majority of more than 75% required from both partnerships, the combination will create a £171m business with 1,300 staff, including 770 lawyers, operating from ten offices worldwide.
Surrey County Council (SCC) and 11 local authorities have again teamed up to launch a tender for a four-year legal advisory panel as its first, put together in 2009, is due to expire.
The panel, which is worth between £6m to £20m, will be divided into three subsets: care and education; general commercial; and environment and infrastructure. It will be accessible by local authorities within Surrey, East Sussex and Berkshire.
SCC first joined forces with its surrounding boroughs in 2009, appointing 21 legal advisors including Davies Arnold Cooper (now DAC Beachcroft), DWF, Trowers & Hamlins, Weightmans, Blake Lapthorn and Freeth Cartwright. Barrister sets appointed included 14 Gray’s Inn Square, 12 College Place, 4 Brick Court, 1 King’s Bench Walk, and 1 Chancery Lane.
In the last major round of hires before 2013 draws to a close, Allen & Overy (A&O) has boosted its international competition capability while Eversheds has expanded its City tax team and firms including Wiggin, Dentons, Field Fisher Waterhouse and Olswang have this month made strategic lateral hires across the media, energy, real estate and insolvency space.
At the start of December, A&O hired Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) competition partner Peter McDonald to head its Australian antitrust and competition practice. Previously a senior officer at the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), at HSF McDonald advised clients in the energy, mining, industrial, retail and financial services sectors.
Increasing numbers of patent and trademark firms can be expected to join the swathes of legal entities becoming alternative business structures (ABS) after their regulatory body won the support of the Legal Services Board (LSB) to become an ABS licensing authority.
In one of three significant recommendations made this week by the LSB to the Lord Chancellor, the regulatory body recommended that the Intellectual Property Regulation Board (IPReg) – the joint regulatory body for the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys and Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys – be awarded ABS licensing authority status, meaning patent and trade mark firms will be able to operate as ABSs under IPReg’s governance.
Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) has bolstered its global real estate capability with the hire of a rated three partner team from Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld’s Moscow office.
The team, which is set to join Goltsblat BLP in mid-January 2014, includes the current head of Akin Gump’s real estate practice in Russia, Vladislav Sourkov, who will be joined by his colleagues Rustam Aliev and Dmitry Maltsev. Sourkov is described by The Legal 500 as ‘dedicated, experienced, and very driven on client service’.
On 20 November, Lord Sumption (Justice of the Supreme Court) delivered the 27th Sultan Azlan Shah Lecture in Kuala Lumpur – The Limits of Law. This was followed by Lord Justice Laws on 27th November in the Hamlyn Lectures 2013 – see Lecture 3 Common Law and Europe. A further lecture on human rights was delivered in Warwick by Lady Hale (Deputy President of the Supreme Court) on 28th November – Lady Hale at the Warwick Law Lecture 2013 – What’s the point of human rights?
These speeches / lectures are not only legally informative but they reveal something of the personalities of the speakers and their attitudes to the vastly important topic of human rights protection as it applies both in Europe and in the UK.
Ashurst has tapped into the magic circle in a bid to strengthen its finance practice, hiring Linklaters debt capital markets (DCM) partner Francis Kucera to its City-based securities and derivatives practice.
In his new role, Kucera will strengthen Ashurst’s DCM offering in the emerging markets. He joins a two-partner team – including former Linklaters’ colleague Stephen Edlmann who joined in 2010 and Clifford Chance senior associate Derwin Jenkinson, who joined as a partner in January this year. The team is led by Anna Delgado, who joined from Allen & Overy ten years ago.
Manchester’s Pannone is offering voluntary redundancies to around 100 staff as a result of its recently announced takeover by Slater & Gordon (S&G).
As reported by RollOnFriday today (9 December), there will be no compulsory redundancies but Pannone has informed around 100 individuals that it is unlikely that there will be positions waiting for them at S&G. Neither Pannone nor S&G would comment when contacted by Legal Business.
