Sir Nigel Knowles, who is set to step down as co-CEO and managing partner at DLA Piper later this year, has been appointed chairman of UK investment banking boutique Zeus Capital.
Guest post: what might the Tory human rights plan be?
Although Tory hostility to human rights law is obvious, there’s been vagueness till now about what actual policy a Conservative government would pursue. For a long time the plan was to draft a ‘British Bill of Rights’ the content of which was unclear – and the idea hasn’t gone away.
Continue reading “Guest post: what might the Tory human rights plan be?”
‘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.
Continue reading “‘A very satisfactory outcome’: Hill Dickinson wins payment in ‘Alexandros T’ case”
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.
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.
Bingham’s Hong Kong office looks set to close as Akin Gump pounces again
Bingham McCutchen’s Hong Kong office has been put in a precarious position with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld making a two partner hire to take the number of partners joining the firm from Bingham to 28, while remaining capital markets partner Vincent Sum’s future is unclear.
Continue reading “Bingham’s Hong Kong office looks set to close as Akin Gump pounces again”
Revolving doors: OC hires from Bakers in international push while Ashurst and Dentons build European presence
Last week saw LB 100 firms Dentons, Ashurst and Osborne Clarke (OC) expand European offices while Addleshaw Goddard boosted its litigation offering.
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.
‘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.
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.
The Friday Edit: Wrongdoing in high and low places, the latest on Bingham and cutting edge New Law twaddle
Welcome to the latest instalment of our weekly recap of interesting things that happened in law land this week.
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).
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.
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.
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.
Continue reading “Financial mis-selling in Ireland and the importance of knowing the consumer”
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.
Continue reading “A better Judiciary to realise Turkey’s potential”
The Disputes Dilemma
MARKET VIEW – INTRODUCTION
Quinn Emanuel’s Ted Greeno weighs up the pros and cons of the different dispute resolution options and offers his insight into which option to pursue
It’s an old chestnut: which is better, litigation or arbitration? This is the third attempt I have had at it. In the first, I wrote an article singing the praises of arbitration over litigation. In the second, I debated for the motion: ‘This house considers that litigation is better than arbitration’, at a Commercial Litigators Forum event. On that occasion, my opponent (now partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan), Stephen Jagusch, used the entirety of his allotted time to quote my article back at me. So I approach this question with caution.
The agony of choice
MARKET VIEW – LITIGATION
Bär & Karrer partners Daniel Hochstrasser and Nadja Jaisli Kull discuss the dos and don’ts to be considered when appointing arbitrators
For all of its emphasis on privacy, procedural flexibility and the reassurance that comes with a widely-adopted enforcement regime in the form of the New York Convention, parties remain attracted to international arbitration for a sometimes-overlooked, but equally important, factor: the ability to select their own decision-makers. In some ways, however, being spoilt for choice can make picking one’s candidate that much more difficult. Do you go for the expensive ‘name’ arbitrator? The Big Law associate tipped for great things but with comparatively few appointments to their name? Or, for counsel and arbitrators of a certain generation, the most unthinkable move of all – a woman?
International relations
MARKET VIEW – LITIGATION
Omni Bridgeway’s Wieger Wielinga gives an overview of the Enforcement of Arbitration Awards against Sovereign entities in Practice
The last decade has shown a sharp increase in investment treaty-based and other international arbitration against sovereign nations, parastatals and other semi-sovereign entities. In the slipstream came an increase in the number of cases in which such sovereigns resisted complying with judgments and arbitration awards, including awards from the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Winning an arbitration award against a sovereign does not necessarily mean that recovery will be successful.
Growing the Litigation Funding Market
MARKET VIEW – LITIGATION
Simon Dluzniak of Bentham IMF discusses Europe’s litigation funding market and compares it with the more mature Australian market the funder has come from
The third-party litigation funding market in this jurisdiction is, relative to Australia, still in its infancy. Hence it is incumbent upon the various stakeholders within the industry to continue to create awareness of the benefits of litigation funding in assisting and shaping its growth. After what appears to have been a fairly positive start, third-party funding (TPF) appears to have suffered a backlash of sorts as a result of a spate of so-called ‘setbacks’, most notably the loss of high-profile funded cases (for example, the Excalibur case) and the collapse of a well-known funder (Argentum).