Once upon a time, in a country far, far away, there was a local tax official. He approached the local manager of a major multinational, offering a reduction in the company’s tax bill in exchange for a bribe. When asked for advice, the general counsel of the multinational forbade the bribe, because to make a payment to the local tax official would be a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).
Every day at TVN is different. Not a lot of it is spent on practising law, although when that happens, the matters that land on my desk are the most strategic or confidential legal issues. Quite a lot of time is spent on management work with my direct reports. My duties also include monitoring and presenting TVN’s point of view on any legislative initiatives that may impact operations.
Continue reading “In-house life: Marek Szydłowski, TVN Group”
GC: Schneider has been acquisitive over the last few years. In terms of the core legal team, what challenges does that represent?
Peter Wexler (PW): There are a couple of things you need to look at when you’re doing an acquisition of a company. Does it have a legal team? Some of the acquisitions we did came with small teams, some with none, and some with large legal teams.
The compliance stakes are climbing higher and higher for global companies. Over the past few years, French companies in particular have had a wake-up call: three of the ten biggest-ever FCPA fines have been levied on businesses headquartered in the country.
Continue reading “Creating a fun and interesting compliance programme – Pernod Ricard tells us how”
It happens in every private equity deal; private equity firms engage outside legal counsel to conduct extensive pre-acquisition due diligence. The primary result of outside counsel’s hundreds – or even thousands – of hours of legal review is a thorough due diligence report highlighting actual and potential legal risks associated with the target company.
Along the way, RPC has taken on an increasingly international focus, making strategic headway into Asia and beyond, building on its existing membership of international network TerraLex.
The Middle East is never boring. The West has long been fascinated by its geo-strategic importance and abundant oil and gas reserves, and frustrated by its variable codification of commercial laws and (in some cases) capricious political stability.
Last week saw Global 100 firms building their presence in Europe, with White & Case bolstering its private equity (PE) practice and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton expanding its competition offering in Brussels. Meanwhile Hill Dickinson hired two partners for its Asia offering including Captain Joe Quain and K&L Gates benefitted from Dentons’ Singapore office closure.
Newly-merged firm Shakespeare Martineau has launched a redundancy consultation which could see the loss of 45 jobs, mainly within the firm’s business support group but also including fee earners.
Continue reading “45 jobs at risk as Shakespeare Martineau launches post-merger redundancy round”
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has stolen a march on rival Slaughter and May after winning the role representing the UK government in its latest disposal of holdings in Lloyds Banking Group.
London teams at Weil, Gotshal & Manges and White & Case were selected as the lead advisers as Ukraine struck a debt-relief deal yesterday on its $18bn sovereign debt pile in a bid to rebuild its fragile economy.
Continue reading “Dealwatch: Weil and White & Case lead on Ukraine’s $18bn debt restructure”
Slater & Gordon has published its financial results for the year to 30 June 2015, recording a 27% increase in revenues as it continued its acquisitive streak throughout the year.
Continue reading “Slater & Gordon sets sights on Global 100 in 2016 as revenues hit A$522m”
DLA Piper has targeted Eversheds‘ Manchester base, hiring three of the firm’s partners from the office, as its bulks up it infrastructure and construction practice.
Having enjoyed another respectable financial performance for the 2014/15 year, Travers Smith has boosted its newly qualified (NQ) associate salaries by £6,000 to £70,000 from £64,000, constituting a 9% rise and putting its rates on a par with Slaughter and May and Hogan Lovells.
With the hue and cry about big data, artificial intelligence and law being accentuated by all the talk around Watson/Ross, I was interested to see this thoughtful, carefully carried out and documented piece of research into the qualities of brief writing before the US Supreme Court from US political scientist Adam Feldman.
Rounding out the Magic Circle retention rates, Allen & Overy has announced an 86% retention rate for the trainee intake qualifying in September 2015 while Linklaters is keeping on 84%.
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Arthur Cox have taken the lead roles today (26 August) as Paddy Power and Betfair announced they had agreed a possible merger in a £5bn deal.
Continue reading “Dealwatch: Freshfields and Arthur Cox line up on Paddy Power and Betfair’s merger”
City firm Marriott Harrison is in talks with a team of London corporate partners at McClure Naismith as more firms emerge as possible homes for lawyers at the beleaguered Scottish outfit.
Continue reading “Marriott Harrison emerges as suitor for McClure’s London corporate partners”
In a further blow to its client roster, White & Case has ended its training contract deal with The University of Law (ULaw) and switched to rival BPP Law School.
Continue reading “On a roll: BPP picks up another client as White & Case switches from ULaw”
Students of the relationship between business and society will, of late, have encountered a new discourse, that around corporate welfare.
Continue reading “Guest post: The truth about corporate welfare”
