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Looking to the future

 MARKET VIEW – ARBITRATION

Three Crowns’ Jan Paulsson looks at how little we know about arbitration in the present and what that means for predicting the future

Speculating about the future of international arbitration is a more comfortable activity than speculating about its present, because as long as we are not talking about the near future we will not be proved wrong, or be criticised for not knowing the unknowable. But are we really entitled to assert very much about the future when we in truth know so little about the present? We are indeed reduced to speculating about the present, and it is worth reflecting on the causes and consequences of finding ourselves in such a frustrating (and humbling) predicament.

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‘A very satisfactory outcome’: Hill Dickinson wins payment in ‘Alexandros T’ case

The Court of Appeal has handed down judgment on the long-running litigation between Starlight Shipping versus Hill Dickinson, a host of insurance companies, and others, allowing defendants Hill Dickinson and insurance services company Charles Taylor Adjusting to recover damages of £225,000 and £100,000 respectively and giving a 60% interim payment.

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82 join the club – eight new partners in City as Kirkland makes up more than Macfarlanes’ entire partnership

In one of the largest global partnership promotion rounds, Kirkland & Ellis has made up eight of its London associates to partner in a round that saw 82 lawyers join the global partnership, including one promotion from of counsel to partner.

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Edwards Wildman loses associate quartet to City firms as tensions mount over potential Cooley takeover

Having endured a spate of high profile partner exits during the summer, US firm Edwards Wildman has now seen four associates depart from its London office, and join the ranks of Eversheds, Travers Smith, Pinsent Masons and automobile giant Nissan in recent weeks as uncertainty over Cooley talks continues.

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Offshore firms join in as Cleary and Clifford Chance lead on Rusal’s $5.15bn debt restructuring

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and Clifford Chance picked up the lead roles along with a raft of offshore firms as Russian aluminum giant Rusal carried out a $5.15bn debt restructuring following a slower than expected recovery in the commodities market.

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‘Steven has been a tremendous force’: Proskauer turns to KWMSJB’s best-known London M&A lawyer as it shifts focus

Steven Davis, who led SJ Berwin’s City corporate team before its $1bn Sino-Australian merger, is set to leave the firm for Proskauer Rose, whose own merger plans with SJ Berwin collapsed before the City firm looked eastwards for growth.

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Dealwatch: Linklaters, Freshfields and Travers Smith fix RAC deal with Singapore sovereign wealth fund

Linklaters’ corporate heavyweight Charlie Jacobs and private equity partner Alex Woodward advised US private equity firm Carlyle on the sale of half of its majority stake in roadside recovery service RAC after abandoning plans to exit the company through a London IPO.

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Guest post: Let’s avoid a huge constitutional talkfest – how devolution needs to be handled

The main constitutional business that ought to be on MPs’ minds at the moment is how to deliver the party leaders’ ‘Vow’ to grant ‘extensive new powers’ to the Scottish Parliament. The extent of powers to be transferred, and particularly the extent of power over tax that will be devolved, is far more urgent and important to the future of the UK than ‘English votes for English laws’ (the principle that MPs for English constituencies should decide on proposals only affecting England).

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Neutral territory

 MARKET VIEW – LITIGATION 

Lalive’s Marc Henzelin and Sandrine Giroud examine the key facts on the enforcement of foreign judgments in Switzerland

Ranked among the top five financial centres in the world and top of the Global Innovation Index 2014, with postcard landscapes and a tradition of discretion and stability, Switzerland remains a top destination for companies and wealthy individuals alike to bring their business and wealth. It is therefore unsurprising that enforcement of foreign judgments against assets held in Switzerland is an issue that comes up regularly in the day-to-day practice of international litigators.

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BSB enforcement report shows improvements with disciplinary action doubling as body appoints new board members

With the Bar having long been slower to change in a post-Legal Services Act environment compared to its solicitor counterpart, its regulator, the Bar Standards Board, has published its annual report on the body’s enforcement activities noting improved performance. The barristers’ regulator has further shaken up its governance and appointed three new board members.

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What’s in store for London’s Commercial Court?

 MARKET VIEW – LITIGATION 

White & Case’s head of litigation, John Reynolds, looks at what impact the development of other countries’ specialist commercial courts will have on the future of London as a centre for international dispute resolution

Despite relentless competition, most notably from New York, the choice of English governing law dominates the international contracts market. So says a recent article from the July/August issue of Legal Business with the benefit of opinion from partners at a number of large international firms (including White & Case’s own David Goldberg).

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Conditional Fees – who wins?

 MARKET VIEW – LITIGATION 

Ian Gray, Litigation head at Eversheds, looks back on the firm’s experience of alternative fee arrangements in commercial disputes, explains the lessons learned, and looks ahead to the future of dispute funding

One-off conditional fees

I remember being told around 1998, just prior to the introduction of conditional fees, that the general counsel of one large client was fed up that litigation lawyers did not have any ‘skin in the game’ and that, as a result, they ran cases too far, without a care for the costs. In the years that followed, we did a series of small and large conditional-fee cases. In truth, we had some tough experiences along the way, at times losing more than just some skin.

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Financial mis-selling in Ireland and the importance of knowing the consumer

 MARKET VIEW – LITIGATION 

John O’Riordan of Dillon Eustace explains what advisers should bear in mind

There has been a significant increase in recent years in the number of claims relating to the alleged mis-selling of financial products to consumers in Ireland. These claims have been varied in their nature but essentially they have a common theme, the sale of an unsuitable financial product to a customer, on the basis of incorrect and/or misleading advice.

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A better Judiciary to realise Turkey’s potential

 MARKET VIEW – LITIGATION 

Mehmet Gün, senior partner at Gün + Partners, examines the difficulties facing the Turkish judiciary and how essential a first-class justice system is to Turkey’s progress

In the 1980s, Turkey undertook significant liberalisation of its national economy. Since then, liberalisation has increasingly become a pivotal part of the international economy. Between the 1980s and 2000, Turkey learnt some very important lessons in the form of economic crises and was saved by International Monetary Fund programmes.

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Jackson – Light at the end of the tunnel?

 MARKET VIEW – LITIGATION 

Enyo Law’s Peter Fitzpatrick, Annabel Thomas and Lauren Gash analyse how the Jackson reforms are bedding down a year after they came into force

Over a year has passed since the Jackson reforms came into force in April 2013 under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act. Like the Woolf reforms before them, the aim of the reforms was to cut the cost of civil litigation and streamline cases, reducing the use of court time and encouraging early settlement.

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