In what will inevitably bring more work for competition lawyers acting for Asian clients in Europe, the EU’s highest court has upheld the European Commission’s €288m fine handed to Taiwanese electronics company Innolux in a ruling that puts the reach of EU competition law at odds with other antitrust regulators worldwide.
Continue reading “Landmark European court ruling to open floodgates for EU competition teams”
Ahead of its recently announced tie-up in Canada, Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co has posted turnover of £181m for its first full financial year post-merger, a moderate revenue increase of 5% over the combined results of the legacy firms Wragge & Co and Lawrence Graham.
Continue reading “Financials 2014/15: Wragge reveals £181m turnover for first full year post-merger”
The lift bank on my floor is the perfect length for a cricket pitch. My son’s old school cricket bat gets used and at 10pm it can be dangerous, as there is quite possibly a golf ball being chipped down the corridor. I have a number of dents outside my office. There is some valuable artwork on that wall, but nobody’s succeeded in hitting it yet.
I trained at Simpson Curtis in Leeds in the early 1980s, because I swore I would never come down to London. I just wasn’t going to come down to this nasty part of the world where it was a case of one-up-over-the-Joneses.
Continue reading “Life during law: Mark Darley, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom”
Pressure to cut costs and innovate, alongside an increasingly robust regulatory environment, has squeezed the UK insurance industry in recent years. How are in-house teams faring in an ultra-competitive market?
The UK insurance market is the third largest in the world, according to the Association of British Insurers, yet it is struggling to make money. Despite taking a battering, the industry has weathered the global financial crisis far better than its counterparts in other financial services and, while it has successfully avoided many of the high-profile difficulties that have undone retail banks in recent years, the retail insurance industry now finds itself in a new era of challenges.
Continue reading “Squeezed – the insurance industry and the modern GC”
With Asia overtaking Europe as the second-most wealthy region in the world, the pressure is on global private client practices to follow the money. Legal Business assesses the front runners.
Whenever money changes hands, disputes follow. Between now and 2025, predictions are that 90% of the world’s private wealth will have new owners. An awful lot of money is on the move and, in large part, that cash is set to transfer down the family line of ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWI) – those with more than $30m in assets – typically from patriarchs to their offspring. Along with all this wealth will come the inevitable trust disputes.
Continue reading “Trust and estates litigation – The great leap forward”
More than 160 senior litigators and GCs came together for Legal Business’ first Commercial Litigation Summit on 13 May in central London. We bring you comprehensive coverage of the day’s debates.
A busy US deal market saw rainmakers pack a bigger punch than ever at the world’s largest law firms but the contest remains tough for aspiring firms. Legal Business separates the champs from the contenders.
Linklaters managing partner Simon Davies chooses his words carefully when describing his partnership’s feelings on the City giant’s performance in 2014/15: ‘they appear content’. The Magic Circle collectively went into the financial year with considerable hopes of rekindling their momentum after a long grind through the post-banking crisis wilderness.
From an intensely competitive market in Asia to renewed fears of states breaking from the EU, law firm leaders give us the global perspective.
‘It is encouraging that the factors contributing to a high level of dealmaking over the past year remain in place, and we are optimistic that these conditions will sustain robust M&A activity, particularly in the telecoms/media and energy sectors, and consolidating industries, such as pharma and healthcare. We may see increased interest in inbound M&A into Europe as its economic recovery continues.’
Eric Friedman, executive partner, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom
‘Most people underestimate how competitive it is in Asia to win work against UK and US firms. Clients are very selective and it’s very price competitive, even for the complex cross-border work. Everyone is competing hard to get to know the client.’
Stuart Fuller, global managing partner, King & Wood Mallesons
Continue reading “Global 100 – Market Comment 2015: Word from the World”
Legal Business took a tour of New York for our Global 100 special and found Wall Street’s elite in a confident mood amid robust deal markets and the ongoing regulatory push.
New York, June 2015. Once the summer arrives in Manhattan, everyone wants to leave – to head upstate or to the Atlantic Coast. Anything to escape the oppressive heat. But among the city’s top-performing law firms, the mood is hot but not bothered. The nine months since Legal Business last visited the Big Apple have brought favourable conditions.
In 2014, the 20 firms in the LB100 that are predominately New York-based amassed $17.03bn at an average revenue per lawyer of $1.2m – well ahead of the Global 100 average and those of the first and second quartiles.
The trailblazing global law firm has had more than its share of knocks since the banking crisis. Will a popular new leader and strategic shake-up help Clifford Chance regain the magic?
‘There seems to be a point at every lunch and every cocktail party where the conversation turns to Clifford Chance. It always happens with conspiratorial whispers and knowing laughter, lawyers in City firms recount the latest tittle-tattle about the second largest firm in the world…
‘Why are people so obsessed with Clifford Chance? Because it is big? Because the lawyers are aggressive? Because the firm challenges City convention? Or it is because they are pioneers? Whether competitors know it or not, Clifford Chance has become a marker by which they measure themselves.’
Legal Business, June 1993
Continue reading “Global 100: Clifford Chance – The shoulders of giants”
2014 saw US firms continue to build on a solid home base but extend their reach in Europe, Asia and Africa. As clients seek to consolidate their law firm panels internationally, the Global 100 continue to slug it out.
‘The last 18 months have seen clients increasingly want to internationalise panels – not just country panels, but want to review which firms they are using in each country and assess whether this can be streamlined to use [fewer] firms that can cover more jurisdictions,’ says Hogan Lovells chief executive Stephen Immelt. ‘Rather than have ten different firms, they want five, so they can have greater consistency and more leverage in terms of pricing.’
Continue reading “Global 100: The regional view – Stick and move”
The firms that appear in the 2015 Global 100 are the largest 100 law firms in the world ranked by revenue.
Momentum versus quality. That’s the question for the upper reaches of the legal industry that is never on the lips of managing partners but probably should be. The industry likes to focus on partnership models, strategies, practices, geographic spread and culture. These are all fine up to a point but as major determinants of success, they get too much air time. But momentum – well, the impact of that is dramatically, empirically startling in law. When firms have it they are capable of achieving staggering levels of growth and market repositioning.
Momentum can come as focused application of a counter-intuitive playbook – Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, Latham & Watkins, Clyde & Co or Mishcon de Reya. It can come in the form of aggressive expansion via mergers and lateral recruitment, as seen in the emergence of DLA Piper. But look at what firms can achieve if they have it. Quinn Emanuel, for example, was the fastest-growing firm in the Global 100, with revenues growing by 163% in just five years. Continue reading “Momentum – the little-discussed magic that can lead to legal success”
Will the real Clifford Chance (CC) stand up? It is, after all, a key moment for what was not that long ago the world’s most influential law firm but working out what it stands for now can be a challenge.
Taking the long view post-2000, a chasm steadily opened up between its celebrated reputation for vision, meritocracy and entrepreneurialism and a reality that too often meant bureaucracy, strategic drift and an indulgent attitude towards individual contribution.
An excess of management would be one thing if CC was delivering operational excellence and rigour but in too many regards the firm did not. The last 15 years saw the disastrous non-integration of Rogers & Wells, an ill-fated move into California and a continual avoidance of important strategic issues on remuneration and performance management. This allowed others to steal its playbook and execute it more clearly. Continue reading “Can CC live up to the legacy?”
The multinational drinks giant’s GC on balancing regulation with refreshment.
A pub crawl or alcoholic supermarket sweep is not typically on the agenda for the average general counsel (GC)’s business trip, but this is exactly what makes SABMiller’s GC and corporate affairs director John Davidson’s job so unusual.
‘When we are in a country, we always make sure we build in what we call a trade visit, but what my wife calls a paid pub crawl, to visit other premises and outlets,’ says Davidson. ‘I spent Wednesday morning last week in Warsaw visiting four different supermarkets. Imagine doing that and getting paid for it.’ Continue reading “Client Profile: John Davidson, SABMiller”
Having spent a reasonable chunk of my pundit duties over the last three years noting significant shifts against London’s elite on the global stage, I confess I had expected financial results this year to break that pattern with City leaders managing a more confident showing.
Unfortunately for London’s finest and my own credibility, that expectation has proved plain wrong because the City’s big four have just posted their most indifferent collective performance since the wipe-out of 2008/09.
True, a weakening euro made the performance look a little softer than it actually was (though a rebound in sterling flattered their results in our Global 100 ranking) but it has still been a very subdued result given a firmer UK economy, masses of cheap debt sloshing around and robust levels of cross-border activity. Continue reading “The Global 100: so much for the City comeback as US leaders land the big blows”
Firm posts 8% PEP hike and 4% revenue increase
With all of the Magic Circle financial results in, Allen & Overy (A&O) has outperformed its peers in an otherwise muted year of growth for the London elite, which saw both Clifford Chance (CC)’s and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s profitability drop.
Continue reading “A&O leads City’s big four amid subdued results”
Four partners are tipped as potential successors as Weston prepares to step down
CMS Cameron McKenna is gearing up for its managing partner election this autumn as chief Duncan Weston prepares to stand down from the role after eight years, with potential successors across the firm’s corporate and disputes practices already coming to the fore.
Continue reading “Candidates emerge as CMS gears up for autumn managing partner election”
