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Euro Elite 2024: Nordics – Horizon scanning

With soaring interest rates, global instability, as well as political and economic insecurity both at home and abroad, the beginning of 2023 was a cautious and uncertain time for law firms across the Nordic region, particularly given the tumultuous year that was 2022. Nevertheless, the region has remained remarkably resilient to global pressures, with firms seeing 2024 as a year of opportunity, driven in part by weak local currencies in Sweden and Norway, developments in AI and ESG mandates, and a surprisingly active corporate space.

‘Like most lawyers, we were surprised at how good 2023 was,’ says Jan Dernestam, managing partner at Mannheimer Swartling. ‘We had to predict cautious budgets for 2023, but it’s looking like we’re up roughly 10% from 2022. This goes for most of the larger firms in Scandinavia.’ Overall, he notes: ‘It’s difficult to pick one area where we’ve been busy because we’ve been busy all over,’ despite the initially challenging market. Continue reading “Euro Elite 2024: Nordics – Horizon scanning”

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Euro Elite 2024: Southern Europe – Treading carefully

The Southern European market has been largely dictated by the recent inflow of foreign investment to the region, as the real estate, renewable energy, and corporate spheres profited extensively throughout 2023. The Euro Elite’s Southern Europe contingent comprises firms from the highly competitive Israeli and Greek markets. While Israel is technically not in Europe, it has been included in the Euro Elite analysis for some years. However, the country’s war against Hamas has sent shockwaves through its $431bn economy, affecting many thousands of businesses and plunging many industries into crisis – making any assessment of the legal market inappropriate at present.

At the close of 2023, Greece’s economic growth continued to outstrip that of other European nations, with the country experiencing a sector boom in the real estate and construction industries. George Bersis, managing partner of POTAMITISVEKRIS, partly attributes the progress down to ‘the reforms of the current pro-business government kicking in’ alongside ‘foreign direct investment’. Blackstone Real Estate Partners Europe is championing this investment drive, as evidenced by its purchase of five high-end hotel resorts for €178m. Continue reading “Euro Elite 2024: Southern Europe – Treading carefully”

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Euro Elite 2024: Switzerland – Endurance race

Switzerland’s legal market faces similar reversals to the world at large: regulatory shifts, geopolitical flux and technological advancements are keeping partners on their toes. ‘The legal market is always developing in parallel to the general economic situation,’ comments Bär & Karrer’s Susanne Schreiber, who co-heads the firm’s tax team. In Q1 2023, Switzerland’s annual inflation rate rose to a high of 3.4% in February, 0.6% up on December 2022. In Q2, things started to look up with rates decreasing to 2.6% in April. Since then, rates have been on a steady decline, remaining at 1.7% for both September and October 2023.

Interest rates, too, have stabilised. Since July 2023, the Swiss National Bank has kept its policy rate at 1.8%, providing a sense of stability to the Swiss economy. Practice areas such as litigation and tax were extremely busy in 2023 while areas like M&A and capital markets saw a decrease in deal volume compared to previous years. Banking and finance and real estate and construction remained stable throughout the year. Continue reading “Euro Elite 2024: Switzerland – Endurance race”

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‘A fast-evolving phenomenon’: City partners on how GCs can get ahead of the ESG curve

‘ESG is a huge opportunity for lawyers, including in-house counsel, to play a different and more strategic role, and be really plugged into the business. But that is also big change and change can be quite difficult,’ asserts Rachel Barrett, environment and climate change partner at Linklaters. Continue reading “‘A fast-evolving phenomenon’: City partners on how GCs can get ahead of the ESG curve”

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Seismic changes

At the advent of 2024, in-house lawyers and general counsel are cautiously observing the ramifications of Nick Ephgrave’s new leadership at the UK Serious Fraud Office with bated breath. The organisation has faced intense scrutiny in recent years due to unsuccessful prosecutions and overall inactivity. Yet, with the appointment of the former senior Metropolitan Police chief, new challenges are expected to emerge for corporations and their in-house teams from a rejuvenated enforcement authority. Continue reading “Seismic changes”

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Revolving Doors: A&O bolsters City structured finance team with Milbank hires

City of London

Leading this week’s high-profile moves, Allen & Overy has appointed John Goldfinch as a partner in its global structured finance practice in advance of its planned merger with Shearman & Sterling. Previously at Milbank, Goldfinch has experience dealing with derivative products and securitisation asset classes including CLOs and CDOs (cash and synthetic), lease receivables, trade receivables, equity, credit rates, NPLs, covered bond transactions and secured structured lending.

Goldfinch brings with him a team of four senior associates from Milbank: Adrian Kwok, Peter West, Eleanor Cripps and Alexandra Wells. A&O has highlighted private capital as a key strategic focus for the firm, with its private capital revenue growing by over 60% over the past two years. Continue reading “Revolving Doors: A&O bolsters City structured finance team with Milbank hires”

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Changing of the guard: DLA Piper elects next managing partner

DLA Piper has today (23 February) announced the election of Charles Severs as its next managing partner. His tenure will begin on 1 January 2025.

Severs moved to DLA Piper as a partner in 2003 from Herbert Smith Freehills.  A Legal 500 Hall of Famer for M&A: Lower Mid-Market Deals, Severs has an impressive client book including John Menzies, Symphony Technology, Science Group, Elekta, Hexcel, Puretech and Keller Group. Continue reading “Changing of the guard: DLA Piper elects next managing partner”

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‘Clients want to come to the best’: Quinn Emanuel breaks $2bn barrier with 26% revenue jump

Quinn Emanuel today announced its firmwide financial results for calendar year 2023, with the litigation powerhouse joining an elite band of firms to notch revenue over $2bn, with a 26% jump taking it from $1.65bn last year to $2.08bn.

The firm also broke $1bn in profit, which reached $1.35bn. Revenue per lawyer was up nearly 16% from $1.61m to $1.86m, despite an increase in total headcount of 108, to 1,120. The results are even more impressive on PEP, which rose 39% from $5.23m to $7.29m – higher than any firm in last year’s Global 100 apart from first-place Kirkland & Ells ($7.52m) and second-place Wachtell ($7.29m). Continue reading “‘Clients want to come to the best’: Quinn Emanuel breaks $2bn barrier with 26% revenue jump”

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Dealwatch: US firms lead on household names The Body Shop and Yodel as restructuring returns

The long-dormant restructuring market has had a shot in the arm recently, with the City teams of US stalwarts winning lead mandates on the administration of The Body Shop and a rescue deal of Yodel.

Jones Day and White & Case are handling the administration of cosmetic group The Body Shop, while Dechert and Weil advised parcel delivery business Yodel to secure a rescue deal backed by one of its rivals. Continue reading “Dealwatch: US firms lead on household names The Body Shop and Yodel as restructuring returns”

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Resistance is agile – Euro Elite firms adapt to survive amid global turbulence

Last year, our annual Euro Elite survey of 100 leading independent firms across more than 40 jurisdictions found partners in a positive mindset but nervous about the potentially bleak outlook for 2023. Those fears had some foundation.

Key market players – both new and old – said that the continent’s law firms would be remiss to forget that geopolitical conflict, the energy market crisis, the tightening of monetary policy and economic contraction loomed around the corner. The subsequent belt-tightening and inertia in the European deals market over the past 12 months has shown this has come to pass. Firms generally are quieter in terms of major corporate mandates and have a larger headcount than the boom year of 2021. This has inevitably taken its toll. Continue reading “Resistance is agile – Euro Elite firms adapt to survive amid global turbulence”

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Breaking barriers: Garrigues tops €450m revenue in milestone for Euro Elite firms

Fernando Vives

Spanish leader Garrigues has continued its pacesetting reputation among the Euro Elite firms by becoming the first in the group to break the €450m turnover barrier.

The results, announced on Tuesday (20 February) continue a decade-long purple patch for the firm, with a 2.5% revenue increase on last year to €454.3m marking a banner year. Continue reading “Breaking barriers: Garrigues tops €450m revenue in milestone for Euro Elite firms”

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Financial Regulatory and Disputes Summit: Stranger than fiction

Even amid a stellar agenda at Legal Business’ Financial Regulatory and Disputes Summit 2023 last November, CMS’ session – Shams and charades: Lessons learned from abusive litigation against banks – made shockwaves around the auditorium of the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London’s Westminster.

Indeed, it’s not often that a panel discussion elicits gasps of astonishment from delegates, but that’s exactly what happened when CMS’ finance disputes partners Tom Dane and Vanessa Whitman (pictured) sat down with Neil Kitchener KC of One Essex Court to discuss their experience representing Allied Irish Banks in the curious case of Kallakis v AIB. Continue reading “Financial Regulatory and Disputes Summit: Stranger than fiction”

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Paul Hastings scores double win from Latham after recent London losses

City of London

Paul Hastings has hired litigation and trial partners Oliver Browne and Stuart Alford KC from Latham & Watkins, just days after it lost structured finance partner Blake Jones to Clifford Chance. Paul Hastings confirmed the moves today (16 February).

Browne leaves Latham after 18 years, having most recently served as the London co-chair of the litigation and trial department. He advises on cross-border disputes, both in court and arbitration, spanning various sectors and involving high-net-worth individuals. Continue reading “Paul Hastings scores double win from Latham after recent London losses”