Comment: What did Brussels ever do for us? The lawyerly view on Brexit

Classicists holding to the maxim ‘first, do no harm’ will be looking in dismay at the debate on the UK leaving the EU. Because – perhaps less than six months ahead of the historic vote over the UK quitting the EU – it is still entirely unclear what the public will be voting for as the exit option.

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‘An environment conducive to M&A’: global elite anticipate busy year after record 2015

Skadden heads US M&A tables while Freshfields leads in Europe

Deal lawyers are unsurprisingly predicting another busy year in M&A as Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer emerged as the top corporate deal shops in the US and Europe respectively in 2015, according to Dealogic.

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What did Brussels ever do for us? The lawyerly view on Brexit

Classicists holding to the maxim ‘first, do no harm’ will be looking in dismay at the debate on the UK leaving the EU. Because – perhaps less than six months ahead of the historic vote over the UK quitting the EU – it is still entirely unclear what the public will be voting for as the exit option.

There are four relatively mainstream paths in the event of Brexit, all fraught with challenges and uncertainty, as we address in this month’s Insight with Herbert Smith Freehills. But at heart, the out campaign is split between two camps: the protectionist conservatives looking to clamp down on immigration and reclaim sovereignty and the free marketeers dreaming of casting off the dead hand of Brussels diktat to reboot Britain as Singapore x 10. Not only are both positions in fundamental conflict but neither seems politically realistic, especially given that British regulation is generally as restrictive as EU equivalents.

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Privacy v transparency – incoming OECD tax rules are opening a new battle front

Withers’ Filippo Noseda casts a weary eye over the latest attempt to bolster tax disclosure

In almost every field of legal work, privacy is regarded as a primary and legitimate concern to protect the interests of individuals and organisations. This was confirmed recently when the European Court of Justice (ECJ) struck down the US-EU data exchange agreement amid fears that data transferred to the US would end up in the hands of the US government – a fear fuelled by the revelations in 2013 by Edward Snowden of widespread electronic surveillance – as well as a US judge’s ruling ordering Microsoft to deliver information held on an Irish server. For the ECJ, the US-EU ‘safe harbour’ agreement violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which states that a private life is a human right and any interference with it must be proportionate and justified.

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International moves: Bonelli recruits A&O Italy senior capital markets partner while BLP makes double Dubai hire

Italian firm BonelliErede, the European best friend of Slaughter and May, has made a key hire with Allen & Overy‘s Italy senior partner, Massimiliano Danusso. Meanwhile, Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) has invested in its Dubai team with a double hire.

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Client profile: Paul van Reesch, Coca-Cola Enterprises

The soft drink giant’s top European lawyer talks about value and facing pressure from the sugar lobby.

As a young man six months into his European travels, Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) legal chief Paul van Reesch realised he literally had a cent to his name.

Fortunately he was offered a job as a temporary lawyer at CCE and never needed the funds to move back home to Australia. Now he’s worked for the soft drink giant’s UK manufacturing and distribution business for more than a decade.

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‘More of a PR stunt than a constitutional milestone’: Government backtracks on withdrawal from ECHR

The Conservative government has backtracked on any planned withdrawal from key provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) through the new draft UK Bill of Rights, while delaying consultation on the proposed law.

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ABC – the brutally simple world of a private equity lawyer

As diversifying private equity houses continue to drive transactional activity in Europe, the battle to build high-end buyout teams intensifies. Who has made the right bets?

The philosophy of Richard Matthew Youle is simple: ‘If you’re moving firms then you’ve got to back yourself that you’ve got the charisma to bring in the clients and have chosen the right firm with a strong enough platform to service them. Then you better deliver the deal, because if you fuck it up, you’re toast.’

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