Aboard the propaganda train – sweat and spin amid a turbulent Russian market

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There’s an old Russian joke about a foreigner who visits the Soviet Union. Knowing his letters will be read by the state censor, he devises a system to communicate with friends back home. If his letter is written in black ink, the message is true. If it is written in red ink, the message is false. Eventually his friends receive a letter from Russia written in black ink: ‘Dear friends, I hope this letter reaches you. Contrary to the lies in our press, life in the Soviet Union is wonderful. Food is plentiful, apartments are spacious and well heated, and there are no shortages. In fact, the only thing I can’t find here is red ink.’

Asking international lawyers about the year they have just had in the Russian market is a similar exercise in reading between the lines. While many firms report that they are still making money, fuelled largely by a boom in restructuring work, this picture is undoubtedly airbrushed by lawyers’ unwillingness to discuss the negatives. No-one, however, is in any doubt that the precipitous decline of the Russian market is hitting revenues. Continue reading “Aboard the propaganda train – sweat and spin amid a turbulent Russian market”

Roaring back – Corporate activity has soared in Ireland

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Earlier this year, Ireland’s prime minister (An Taoiseach) Enda Kenny made an appeal to emigrants who had departed the country in the aftermath of the economic crash to return home. Speaking at the launch of an official government policy paper, ‘Global Irish: Ireland’s Diaspora Policy’, the appeal was aimed at encouraging educated Irish people to return, as the government ramps up efforts to entice international investment and capitalise on the fragile Irish economic recovery.

Identifying around 200,000 people, Kenny said: ‘Emigration has a devastating impact on our economy as we lose the input of people, of talent and energy. We need these people at home. And we will welcome them. I believe that, after seven years of emigration, 2016 will be the year when the number of our people coming home will be greater than the numbers who leave.’

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The Middle East: After the gold rush

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Latham & Watkins doesn’t make strategic missteps. Or at least that appeared to be the case until March, when the firm announced that it will close both its Abu Dhabi and Qatar offices later this year, relocating staff to its Dubai operation. Bill Voge, chair and managing partner of the firm that has been by most yardsticks the standout success story of the last 20 years, said the firm had been wrong in assuming there were four distinct hubs that the firm needed to service clients in the Middle East – Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Qatar and Saudi Arabia – and so after seven years in the region, the firm was consolidating its Middle East presence into Dubai and Riyadh.

For international firms, finding the appropriate business model and strategy for the Middle East has been a puzzle. The region was never more alluring than at the height of the pre-financial crisis period of 2007 and 2008. Intoxicated by crude oil prices at nearly $150 a barrel in the summer of 2008, the Middle East could hardly have felt more prosperous. As ostentation gripped the region, Dubai powered ahead with ambitious projects such as the man-made archipelago Palm Jumeirah and the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building. Naturally, the legal profession sought to capitalise.

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Trading Places – Israel’s tech-heavy legal market widens its global reach

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Shimon Peres, the 91-year-old former Israeli president, may not be the most obvious social media fanatic. Yet in 2014 he opened an account on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Facebook, expressing his desire to interact directly with the Chinese people, including its younger generation. The nonagenarian quickly received over 50 million ‘likes’ on his Weibo page.

This symbolises a wider cultural and economic shift. For decades, Israel’s political elite has made much of the nation’s natural affinity with the US and the influential Jewish community there. That umbilical cord to the world’s most powerful nation that has fertilised Israel’s tech and start-up community remains intact. But in recent years, as western pressure and sanctions have been exerted on Israel over its conflict with Palestine, it has turned its sights to the East, where Asian jurisdictions have taken a less judgemental line on its political and military stance.

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Return of the black dog – Hard times return for Cyprus’ legal community

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Wind back 12 months and the mood from the Cypriot legal community was undeniably improving. The island was meeting the terms of its €10bn bailout from Europe, following near economic collapse in 2013; the discovery of gas reserves offshore looked particularly favourable; and even the Turkish and Cypriot halves of the country had begun reviving stalled peace talks with the aim of once and for all reuniting the island.

Once again, though less happily this time, what a difference a year makes. Twenty four months on from the EU-imposed haircut, a feeling of pessimism has returned to Cyprus – certainly among its legal elite.

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Aftershocks – hard decisions for Swiss lawyers amid a turbulent market

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When even that most venerable of Swiss industries, watch-making, comes under threat, you know the country has a problem. But this proved to be the case in the early weeks of 2015: global brand Swatch saw its share price slump 15% after the Swiss National Bank (SNB) announced on 15 January that it would abandon the cap on the Swiss franc against the euro that it first introduced in September 2011. Keeping the franc at CHF1.20 to the euro had became increasingly expensive for the SNB, as it sold its own currency and bought up euros, sterling, US and Canadian dollars and yen, usually in the form of government bonds.

Many were shocked by the move, which has left investors worrying that with the CHF now floating against the euro, Swiss companies will struggle to maintain export levels. Swatch chief executive Nick Hayek called the decision ‘a tsunami’ for Switzerland’s economy. Mark Haefele, chief investment officer of UBS, has estimated that the policy will cost Swiss exporters close to CHF5bn (£3.3bn), equivalent to 0.7% of Swiss economic output.

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The tide is high – the report card on the world’s top offshore players

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With global corporate markets experiencing a resurgence in 2014, the strongest offshore law firms had key roles to play in the world’s most high-profile deals and disputes. Legal Business’ annual offshore survey assesses recent highlights and profiles the leading offshore law firms.

In many ways, the last 12 months have represented another robust year for the ten largest global offshore law firms. In our first annual report on those firms last year, a number cited double-digit increases in revenues on the previous year. This year, a number are again reporting significant growth.

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Stuck in the middle – CEE advisers buffeted from pressures from east and west

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On a Sunday night in mid-November last year, people gathered on the streets of Bucharest in their thousands to celebrate the choice of Klaus Iohannis as Romania’s next president; a liberal thinker and the first person from the country’s ethnic German Protestant minority to be elected. With a voting turnout of 62%, the highest in 14 years, Iohannis’s appointment was considered a surprise for this conservative, majority-Eastern Orthodox country.

While in essence a protest vote against the incumbent government and its socialist prime minister Victor Ponta, who ran a staunchly nationalist campaign, Iohannis’ election may well prove to be an asset for the nation. The centre-right leader’s plans to modernise Romania include establishing an anti-corruption regime – the country is widely regarded as among the most corrupt in Europe – focusing on the rule of law, safeguarding the independence of the judiciary and, equally important, winning western investment (well before the election, Romania regained its investment credit rating for the first time in six years from Standard & Poor’s). Most importantly, Iohannis’ election signals the increasingly progressive mood of the Romanian public, which is good news for the domestic and international law firms operating there.

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Constructing continents – the clients and advisers targeting Africa’s booming infra market

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In August this year, President Obama hosted the largest US-Africa leaders’ summit ever, with the heads of nearly every African nation gathering in Washington DC. As well as working on governance and leadership issues, Obama talked to a business forum hosted in the Mandarin Oriental, with 90 US firms and over 100 major African companies attending, in an attempt to broker deals and build relationships across the Atlantic.

The summit came after 18 months that have seen increasing numbers of US institutions committing money to the continent and stoking opportunities for law firms. But the US is late to the game with Asian, Middle Eastern and European players having an established presence while local developers have become increasingly prominent. Continue reading “Constructing continents – the clients and advisers targeting Africa’s booming infra market”

Chasing the bear – Sanctions bite on Russia’s legal market

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Russia-based lawyers are a hardy bunch, conditioned to working in a volatile market where ups turn into downs on an almost annual basis. No matter how good things might appear, they are well aware that some form of political interference or economic disaster might be lurking around the cor­­ner. Most get by on the knowledge that Russia’s lucrative market is remarkably robust and that in the long term it always seems to bounce back.

Yet, even for the most seasoned western lawyers who went through the Russian sovereign debt default of 1998, the events of 2014 are proving an altogether different experience. While previous Russian misdemeanours were largely tolerated – be it the Russo-Georgian war of 2008 or the politically motivated imprisonment of Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2003 and the subsequent dissolution of Yukos – it has been impossible for the West to ignore Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014, the subsequent war and support of separatists in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region, and the inevitable ratcheting up of economic sanctions from the US, EU and other western states, has led to a situation so intractable that few can see an obvious way out. Continue reading “Chasing the bear – Sanctions bite on Russia’s legal market”