Linklaters reshuffles to boost corporate and disputes

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Magic Circle firm Linklaters has moved its TMT and tax groups from its commercial division into corporate. The firm has overhauled a three-strand structure – corporate, commercial and finance and projects – in a bid to strengthen its corporate team as the firm looks to crack America.

Around 40 lawyers globally from tax and TMT will come under the corporate umbrella, with the commercial group having been rebranded as dispute resolution.

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Cyber risk moving up the in-house agenda

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General counsel (GC) are increasingly involved in handling cyber security issues at board level, reflecting a more comprehensive shift towards effective risk management, research from Legal Business and PwC has revealed.

In a survey of corporate attitudes to cyber security risk this autumn, which garnered more than 800 responses from a broad mix of senior corporate managers, owners, legal and IT, nearly half (46%) of all GC respondents said they had delivered advice to the board on cyber and data security matters in the last year. Thirty five percent of GC respondents said this occurs on a quarterly basis.

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Fried Frank faces multi-million professional negligence claim

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Collyer Bristow pays £24m settlement over Rangers advice

US firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson is facing a professional negligence claim at London’s High Court. Made by a former client, it alleges multiple breaches of duty over advice provided on the enforcement of a commercial loan in France.

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‘There is a fundamental tension here’: Lawyers nervous about exceptions to professional privilege

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With government intelligence agencies and tax authorities coming under a spotlight in recent weeks over the sourcing of legally privileged documentation, justification and potential implications for such action has increasingly generated cause for concern among City lawyers.

It emerged in November that the Investigatory Powers Tribunal had discovered that legally privileged documents may have been targeted by British intelligence agencies MI5, MI6 and GCHQ.

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A&O and Linklaters scale back in Russia as foreign firms feel the brunt of sanctions

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Law firms scramble to reposition Moscow practice as EU sanctions hit home Russia’s volatile political environment began to have an impact on international and domestic law firms in Moscow at the beginning of this year, but as 2015 nears, and with multiple rounds of international sanctions imposed on the country, the situation has dramatically deteriorated.

US and EU sanctions on Russia have taken their toll on many located in Moscow, including Allen & Overy (A&O), which offered redundancy packages at associate level in October; Linklaters, which seconded 19 associates into other regions; White & Case, which reduced its Moscow-based headcount across both partner and associate levels; and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, whose office associate headcount dropped.

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Guerrillas in our midst: LCIA takes action on award delays and obstructionist tactics

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Tom Moore assesses the impact of the new London arbitration rulebook

The battle lines between arbitration lawyers and litigators have long been drawn along arguments of efficiency and cost. The urban myth, somewhat manufactured by arbitration practitioners themselves, that arbitration is more expedient and less costly than its cousin in the courts has long been dismissed, while increasingly the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA) is not only competing with courts for big-ticket cases, but other institutions around the world.

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Not always an ‘easy journey’: Q&A with Jonathan Scott, outgoing HSF senior partner

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Tom Moore talks to Jonathan Scott, senior partner and chair at Herbert Smith Freehills, about management, why he’s stepping down early and his worries over the reputation of English law.

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Why have you decided to leave your post early?

We get all the partners together once every two years and, if we ran the election after our November conference, there would be a preoccupation with who would be the next senior partner. If we’re going to spend that money getting everyone together, it’s not the best use of time to be talking about internal issues, so I made a decision, and I want to make it very clear that it was my decision with some internal resistance, that we would have the election beforehand.

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‘Trophy assets’: Bakers and Taylor Wessing lead on Gherkin sale

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Baker & McKenzie and Taylor Wessing helped finalise the sale of London’s iconic Gherkin building to the Safra Group for over £700m.

The sale last month of one of London’s most distinctive and recognisable landmarks, the 40-storey skyscraper, located at St Mary Axe in the City’s primary financial district, was placed into receivership in April after one of its owners was placed in insolvency, with big-four giant Deloitte appointed as receiver.

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Freshfields, Linklaters and Taylor Wessing advise on United Biscuits sale to Turkish buyer

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Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Linklaters and Taylor Wessing have taken the leading roles representing the sale of UK-based United Biscuits to Turkey’s largest food and beverage company Yildiz Holding.

The British food manufacturer – which makes McVitie’s, Jaffa Cakes, Hobnobs and Penguins, and Jacob’s Cream Crackers and Twiglets – will be acquired from private equity owners The Blackstone Group and PAI Partners by Yildiz for a reported £2bn.

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