Stewart steps out of Goldstein shadow as Olswang hands popular head another term

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Leadership Olswang

TMT specialist Olswang has re-elected long-time head David Stewart as chief executive for another three years.

Before being elected chief executive, Stewart was the firm’s managing partner since 2007. He has been a driving force behind the corporate media specialist’s attempt to refashion itself as a credible international player. As important, Stewart was charged with becoming the public face of Olswang when thrusting and high profile chief executive Jonathan Goldstein announced his departure six years ago.

Nabarro promotes restructuring head Godfrey to international role

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Restructuring CMS UK

Nabarro has appointed restructuring and insolvency head Patricia Godfrey as its new head of international.

As part of the new role Godfrey will have a seat on the firm’s board and chair its international committee, which oversees the firm’s relationships with its European Alliance partners and international plans.

Currently Godfrey heads up Nabarro’s European group which manages the relationship firms within the European Alliance, including French firm August & Debouzy, GSK Stockmann + Kollegen in Germany, Nunziante Magrone in Italy and Spain’s Roca Junyent.

OFT senior director joins Gibson Dunn’s City office

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Competition Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher has recruited Ali Nikpay, senior director at the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) into its antitrust and competition group in London.

Nikpay joins the US firm as a partner after nine years at the OFT and brings with him Deirdre Taylor, global OFT assistant director from the cartel and criminal enforcement division. Both will be based in London and will start on April 15.

At Gibson Dunn, Nikpay will focus on strengthening the European practice, advising clients on EU and UK cartels, mergers, monopolization cases and other regulatory investigations. He will also work closely with Gary Spratling, who is a partner based in San Francisco.

FSA slaps Pru with £30m fine before its split

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Finance Freshfields Bruckhaus DeringerStephenson Harwood

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) handed out its last penalty before being split up after fining companies in the Prudential Group (Prudential) a total of £30m.

According to the watchdog, the fine relates to Pru’s failure to inform the regulator that it was seeking to acquire AIA, the Asian subsidiary of AIG, in early 2010.

Stephenson Harwood and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer landed roles advising on the fine.

CoA makes up three women in recent justice appointments

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Gender diversity

Three female judges have been appointed to the Court of Appeal (CoA) in the latest round of promotions, which has seen 10 new justices appointed.

The promotions, as made by the Queen, include Mrs Justice Gloster, Macur and Sharp, and take the total number of CoA judges to seven from four.

Gloster J was appointed to the High Court in 2004, while Sharp J spent just four years on the High Court bench before her promotion to the CoA. Macur J joins from the Midland Circuit, where she was the presiding judge.

CMS to reduce scope of Integreon outsourcing agreement

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Innovation CMS UK

CMS Cameron McKenna is to scale back its staff outsourcing agreement with Integreon just three years into its ten-year contract.

The news comes four days after Osborne Clarke confirmed it will dramatically reduce its own use of the outsourcing provider.

Duncan Weston, CMS managing partner, today (28 March) confirmed that the firm is considering turning to an alternative provider for facility services currently provided by Integreon but would not provide any detail of how many staff would be affected or the name of the third party provider.

Withers and Speechly Bircham set to merge

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Legal mergers Charles Russell SpeechlysWithers

Private client leaders Speechly Bircham and Withers are set to merge, potentially creating a 600-lawyer, £170m practice that will fit easily into the top 25 of the Legal Business 100.

News of the union was revealed by RollonFriday on 22 March. On paper the union would make strategic sense. The two firms have almost identical profit margins (Speechly 20%; Withers 21%), although Withers has a considerably higher profit per lawyer of £72,000 to Speechly’s £46,000.

Osborne Clarke retracts bulk of outsourced staff four years after deal

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Osborne Clarke

Osborne Clarke (OC) is set to withdraw the majority of its outsourced staff from provider Integreon and bring them back in-house four years after initially striking the deal.

The firm will transfer roughly 65 of the 75 support staff, who were first assigned to Integreon in 2009, back to its offices, with two jobs thought to be at risk. The original deal was intended to last for seven years.

Litigation group Proven appoints David Gold to board

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Litigation Herbert Smith Freehills

Litigation support business, Proven, had hired former Herbert Smith senior partner Lord David Gold as its chairman.

Gold, who currently runs litigation advisory firm David Gold & Associates, will sit on Proven’s board, which includes former BP general counsel and executive vice president Peter Bevan, and former Director of Public Prosecutions River Glaven QC.

London and New York-based Proven, part of the three-fold Good Governance Group, supports litigation and dispute resolution teams involved in high value multi-jurisdictional cases, as well as specialist services in e-discovery and digital forensics.