Victoria Young talks to the long-serving Europe and Middle East managing partner
When Legal Business last profiled Squire Patton Boggs’ UK legacy firm Hammonds in 2005, the cover line was ‘Bad habits’ – profits had slumped, lock-ins had been introduced and outgoing partners were considering legal action. New managing partner Peter Crossley pledged to get his house in order.
The demise of 11 Stone Buildings last summer sparked claims within the Bar that others would face the same fate. As the gap between the haves and have-nots widens, can second-tier sets survive?
‘If you don’t stop gossiping about the collapse of this set, you will make it happen. You’re scaring people. Things are not as bad as they seem.’
A staff member to a junior barrister at 11 Stone Buildings, summer 2015
‘Unfortunately, there’s an incentive to leave before the crash. If people think the set isn’t going to last they’ll start leaving. It’s then that the set starts shredding at the edges. Nobody wants to be left behind.’
Michael Furness QC, co-head of chambers, Wilberforce Chambers
The international news outlet’s long-serving GC discusses the company’s buy-back move and its digital ventures
It was third time lucky when Legal Business finally managed to catch up with The Economist Newspaper’s general counsel (GC) and company secretary, Oscar Grut. The GC offered a stream of apologies on this reporter’s arrival in his Canary Wharf office, explaining that he had been busy selling off the company’s London headquarters in St James’s.
Continue reading “Client profile: Oscar Grut, The Economist”
New legislation and a tougher outlook from regulators has competition partners salivating, but the old guard maintain their dominance in the City. Can the rise of US players extend to antitrust practices?
Having long been viewed as stable, the UK’s competition law agenda has been shaken up significantly over the last 12 months, with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)’s public attack on the proposed merger of mobile networks O2 and Three last month the clearest example yet. In an unprecedented move CMA chief executive Alex Chisholm published a letter to the European Commission, which is assessing the deal, stating that the £10.25bn purchase of O2 by Three owner Hutchison would cause ‘long-term damage to the UK telecoms market’.
Continue reading “Less bark, more bite – competition to the fore as tougher enforcement arrives”
As the SRA prepares to overhaul its handbook, we ask whether its new focus on in-house will be enough to help tackle the ethical issues general counsel face.
‘There’s a serious danger of a regulator trying to regulate something that it doesn’t understand,’ says Kingfisher group general counsel (GC) and company secretary Clare Wardle. Her comment comes as the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) works on another overhaul of its handbook, halfway through a two-year review that will end in 2017, a process that has clear plans to be more inclusive of the in-house profession.
Continue reading “Lost in translation – can regulators respond to the rise of in-house?”
My career couldn’t be better. Nice work, nice clients, good money… The culture of this firm lends itself to being an enjoyable place to work. We don’t have the bureaucracy or warfare other firms have.
I started at Clifford Turner. Matthew Layton was still in shorts. The head of commercial litigation in the early 1980s was a South African called Leon Boshoff – very tall, powerfully built… Behind that fearsome appearance he had a razor-sharp mind. One of the cases involved Lloyd’s of London. He took them on four square. He taught us to be fearless and not judge a situation by: ‘Well, this is a reputable institution, they can’t have done anything wrong.’ Drill down. Find the evidence. Form your own judgement.
Continue reading “Life During Law: Stephen Paget-Brown, Travers Smith”
Foreword
The rate of change affecting litigation costs is alarming when the rumours and policy proposals are conflated with the concrete developments. If Sir Rupert Jackson had his way, the burden of court-mandated budgeting in cases up to £10m, itself relatively new, would soon be alleviated at the lower end by fixed costs. That lower end could be in cases worth up to £250,000 – which to the wider world is not low at all.
Meanwhile, budgeting is said to be clogging up the court lists; hence only skeletal budget submissions are now needed for cases worth up to £50,000. There is an updated court form for compiling and presenting budgets but it remains user-hostile. The design of this ‘Precedent H’ continues to veer towards data obfuscation and is not easy on the eye. Continue reading “Sophisticated spending – Managing the costs of high-stakes litigation”
JLegal’s Richard McLerie discusses the region’s legal market.
Over the past 12 months, the region has endured a period punctuated by numerous challenges, principle among which is arguably the depression in oil prices and the ongoing danger posed by militant groups destabilising significant areas of the region. The wider ramifications of these factors cannot be covered exhaustively here. However, of notable importance in the context of the legal market is how some of the more stable jurisdictions, notably that of the UAE, which continues to stand out as the hub from which firms operate their regional offering, have benefited from the migration of wealth into the more stable, internationally-underpinned markets from wider areas of the Middle East deemed, at least for the time being, unacceptably risky locations in which to invest.
Afridi & Angell’s James Bowden highlights four of the latest legal updates.
In the past year the UAE saw an unusual number of important legislative developments. For this feature, we have picked a few of the key developments to summarise briefly. This is by no means exhaustive.
Having landed Travers Smith private equity veteran Phil Sanderson in 2014, top 50 US law firm Ropes & Gray has returned to the leading private equity shop to recruit rising star Helen Croke.
Continue reading “Ropes continues City buyout push with hire of Travers star Helen Croke”
Shearman & Sterling, Reed Smith, Dentons and Eversheds are among the firms appointed to Nokia’s newly-created global legal panel.
Continue reading “Ringing the changes – Nokia appoints first global legal panel”
After a high-profile tussle and one of the biggest team hires in the City, Sidley Austin has secured the corporate work of key Kirkland & Ellis client TowerBrook Capital Partners, amid claims that Sidley pushed aggressively to secure the work.
Continue reading “Sidley secures TowerBrook work despite K&E charm offensive”
Newly qualified solicitors at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer have an extra £17,500 in their pay packets this year after the firm announced it has folded a discretionary bonus into NQ salaries from 1 May.
FRESHFIELDS PLANS VANCOUVER HUB
After launching a nearshoring office in Manchester, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is planning to open another outpost in Vancouver, Canada. The office is set to cover a range of business services roles. The firm is looking to hire at least 20 legal services employees to launch the office.
FORSTERS AND SLAUGHTERS LEAD ON TATA STEEL SELL OFF
Forsters and Slaughter and May acted on Greybull Capital’s rescue deal to buy Tata Steel’s European long products business, which includes the Scunthorpe steel works employing 3,500 people. Slaughters advised Tata, while Forsters acted for family office Greybull.
Continue reading “Deal watch: Corporate activity in April 2016”
On the face of it, Cyprus has much to celebrate. In March, the country completed the three-year economic adjustment programme that followed 2013’s €10bn bailout package agreed with the European Commission, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. That the country has finally wrested back control of its finances was coupled with the Commission’s prediction of a 1.4% rise in GDP for Cyprus in 2015 – the first year of economic growth since 2011.
This good news provides a psychological boost following years of financial turmoil, but even the most ardent optimist would concede that Cyprus has a long way to go. The island is mired in debt and faces a lengthy period of post-programme surveillance (PPS) by the Commission, which will continue until it has paid at least 75% of the €7.25bn in loans it received from the bailout. The Commission estimates that, ‘barring any early repayments’, the PPS will continue till at least 2029. Alongside this are the €26.7bn of non-performing loans (NPLs) that the country’s banks must deal with. According to the World Bank, in 2015 these NPLs accounted for 44.8% of the country’s total gross loans, a figure much higher than Greece’s 34.4%. These factors will define Cyprus’s economic future for many years to come, both on a macro and micro level. Fundamental to this is how Cyprus positions itself in the global economy, particularly now that one of its key investment partners, Russia, can no longer be relied upon to generate previous levels of work. Continue reading “Cyprus: Picking up the pieces”
Oil price volatility is a fact of life in the Middle East. At below or around $40 a barrel, the region has been dealt a hard dose of realism. Developing economic models that rely less on oil and gas revenues is now the order of the day, while national governments have had to rein in notoriously lavish spending programmes.
Law firms that rushed into the Middle East as it became a significant driver of global economic activity amid soaring oil prices a decade ago, now have to review their strategies. Continue reading “Running on empty – how to survive in the Middle East in the era of cheap oil”
Allen & Overy and Linklaters have won roles on the creation of Froneri, a 50/50, €3bn joint venture between global food giant Nestlé and British frozen food firm R&R Ice Cream to sell ice cream in more than 20 countries.
Allen & Overy (A&O) has added a three-strong US securities team to its Australian operations. The team joins the firm after leaving Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, which confirmed it was closing its Sydney office in February, reducing its presence to just one partner in the country.
Within weeks of securing Ashurst equity capital markets partner Jonathan Parry, White & Case has tapped the Anglo-Australian firm again with the arrival of disputes specialist Mark Clarke. Continue reading “Expansive White & Case taps Ashurst for the second time in two weeks for disputes partner”
