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Hostile takeovers globally at highest value since May 2007

Increase in bids raises hopes of a rise in UK M&A work

M&A partners are predicting that the UK could soon see an increase in lucrative hostile takeovers after the first five months of this year saw unsolicited bids globally hit their highest value since May 2007, standing at a total of $273.4bn.

Bids, whether pending, completed, withdrawn or rejected, are up significantly on the $70.6bn announced in 2013, according to figures from Dealogic, largely driven by Pfizer’s unsuccessful $122.6bn approach for the UK’s AstraZeneca, announced on 2 May, in what is the third largest hostile M&A bid on record.

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Global 100 Overview – Superman Returns

Although the global recession laid many of the world’s leading law firms low for a time, this year’s Global 100 sees a return to form for some storied players. Legal Business discovers which firms have found their powers again.

It has been a rough few years for the supermen and women of the world’s largest law firms. While the disputes and insolvency markets have soared since the 2008 banking crisis, the big name transactional lawyers who had driven their firms’ growth for the preceding two decades faced a prolonged period where their powers and status faded as confidence ebbed from Western markets.

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Mobile cyber-security – Pay as You Go

Mobile technology has enabled today’s lawyers to be more responsive to clients’ needs than ever before but brings added risk of cybersecurity breaches. How are law firms coping with the threats?

Our recent risk management survey, published in March, provided an insight into the level of concern that breaches of IT and data security raise within law firms. Every year since 2008, our annual survey has identified IT/data security breaches as the most significant threat to law firms in terms of actual damage caused and the likelihood of that damage occurring. No firm has fallen foul of a serious reported breach to date but some anecdotal horrors recounting the blasé approach of some lawyers to holding sensitive client data on mobile devices suggests such an outcome is merely a matter of time.

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Marking your own homework: Dentons and a defence of PEP

Alex Novarese takes a jaded view of the latest attempt to avoid transparency

It would almost be too easy to pick holes in the letter that Dentons has supplied to the media to justify its attempt to withhold its profits on the basis of Olympian high principle. But I won’t let that stop me.

The letter, authored by Dentons’ chief executive Elliott Portnoy and chair Joe Andrew, sets out a number of arguments as to why Dentons won’t disclose basic information on the profitability and the margins on which it operates. Without exception, they lack substance, though to varying degrees. Indeed, it’s notable that Dentons largely fails to make any of the credible arguments for not supplying figures on profit per equity partner (PEP).

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Global 100 Choice of Law – Clash of the Titans

In the global market, there remain two great powers: English and New York law. While US law has gained an edge in recent years, the debate continues over which will emerge victorious.

The popularity of English law is one of the UK’s most enduring sources of soft power, having underpinned the huge global success of London’s law firms and projected British influence for hundreds of years. And yet it is rarely commented on.

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Global 100 Regional View – Emerging Powers

2014 is the first year since 2007 that western jurisdictions were not comprehensively outclassed by emerging markets. But Legal Business finds the siren call of eastern economies is still too hard to resist for most Global 100 firms.

‘Nothing appears to have changed in the way firms move in and out of markets,’ reflects Norton Rose Fulbright chief executive Peter Martyr. ‘When it’s good, the Wall Street firms come in sharp and fast with a big chequebook and withdraw quickly when it’s bad. The global firms, on the other hand, take the pain over a much longer period.’

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Global 100 Arbitration Focus – Battle for the City

London has established an increasingly powerful position as a global arbitration hub. But does it have the facilities to drive forward its growth?

While Russian oligarchs flocking to London’s courts attracted much publicity – and its share of controversy regarding ‘renting’ of British justice – another little-noted boom bringing rich foreign parties to the City to settle disputes is arguably far more significant: the rise of London as an arbitration hub.

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Global 100 Market Comment – Word from the World

From cooling in Asia markets to a resurgence in Europe; from increased deal work to an uptick in banking litigation – Global 100 law firm leaders share their views

A year in two halves

‘It’s been a year of two parts for quite a lot of our practices, with challenging economic conditions in the first half of the year followed by a return of market confidence, and with that the return of transactional activity. That was true across the world.’
Sonya Leydecker, joint chief executive, Herbert Smith Freehills

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Revolving Doors: DLA hires in France and the US; Simmons grows Bristol; Gibson Dunn expands in Beijing and Hong Kong

International expansion last week saw DLA Piper hire Holman Fenwick Willan’s (HFW) Paris head of tax Hervé Israël and bolster its US practice with a double litigation partner hire from Greenberg Traurig, while Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher expanded in Beijing and Hong Kong. Closer to home, Simmons & Simmons bolstered its growing Bristol presence with the hire of Osborne Clarke corporate partner Patrick Graves. Continue reading “Revolving Doors: DLA hires in France and the US; Simmons grows Bristol; Gibson Dunn expands in Beijing and Hong Kong”

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Herbert Smith Freehills launches German competition practice with hire of Taylor Wessing head Michael Dietrich

Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) has moved one step closer to offering clients a full service out of its still fledgling German offices with the launch of local competition capability led by Taylor Wessing’s former regional practice head Michael Dietrich. Continue reading “Herbert Smith Freehills launches German competition practice with hire of Taylor Wessing head Michael Dietrich”