Having made its audacious entrance into London’s legal market in January, US tech giant Cooley has begun rolling out the agenda for its new 55-lawyer UK practice, including appointing two City lawyers to its management committee, a further two to its compensation committee, and setting a revenue target for the team.
Setting up a panel: Eight firms secure spots on newly created FSCS roster
The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) has placed eight firms, including Slaughter and May, Herbert Smith Freehills and King & Wood Mallesons, on its newly created legal panel as it seeks a more structured approach to recouping investor losses.
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Strangling the golden goose – Nigel Boardman on why English law needs reform
Slaughter and May‘s Nigel Boardman, James Shirbin and Andrew Blake argue that English law needs drastic reform to remain internationally competitive.
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Into Africa: Shearman & Sterling plans first African office opening
US law firm Shearman & Sterling is preparing to open an office in Egypt, marking the firm’s first foray into Africa with plans for an international arbitration and projects practice.
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Comment: Global Law Summit misses the mark and a big opportunity
Here at Legal Business we like to set the agenda, so we’re feeling ahead of the game in pointing out shortcomings with this month’s Global Law Summit, the government-backed initiative to celebrate the 800-year anniversary of Magna Carta and British traditions of the rule of law.
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Global ambitions: Dentons opens in Jo’burg as accounts show profit jump
Dentons has continued its rapid expansion with the addition of a new South African office in Johannesburg, while accounts filed at Companies House by Dentons UKMEA LLP have revealed the firm saw a substantial rise in profits as it lowered operating costs and improved turnover.
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Growing the team: Mayer Brown hires DLA Piper’s head of structured trade finance
Mayer Brown, as it eyes an increase in cross-border asset-based lending (ABL) throughout Europe, has boosted its City banking and finance team with the hire of Alex Dell, DLA Piper’s structured trade and receivables finance head.
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Winning in court: Mishcon de Reya avoids potential £10m plus claim as case dismissed
A $3.7m claim against Mishcon de Reya for dishonestly assisting a ‘crook’ client who used money meant to refinance a hotel resort in Orlando on a playboy lifestyle, including a £170,000 Maybach car and a £33,000 diamond bracelet, has been dismissed at the High Court.
News in brief – February 2015
KENNEDYS OPENS IN SCOTLAND
Last month, Kennedys finally entered the Scottish market with the opening of offices in Glasgow and Edinburgh after talks with Simpson & Marwick fell through at the end of 2013. The firm hired Francis Gill & Co’s founder and director Frank Gill, and Rory Jackson, insurance liability and regulatory partner at McClure Naismith, to co-lead the practice.
LATHAM OPENS NEARSHORING OFFICE IN MANCHESTER
Latham & Watkins announced it is set to open a business services office in Manchester during 2015. In the firm’s second centre (after its first in LA), 25 staff will focus on IT and technology support in Europe and there will also be a financial analysis team to provide practice and regional heads with greater budgetary insight.
Life During Law: Ciaran Carvalho, Nabarro
I decided I wanted to be a lawyer aged 14. My parents’ friends were looking after me while my parents were away. They didn’t have children and wondered what to do with me – we started playing around with words during a game of Scrabble and after that it turned into a career talk because I was slightly argumentative. It struck a chord.
Titmuss Sainer & Webb was a real estate firm before forming an alliance with Dechert Price & Rhoads. The London property guys were worried because they wondered what a US firm would think of real estate. For me, it was an enormous benefit. It opened my eyes to international clients, the wider world, and not just domestic practice.
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Stuck in the middle – CEE advisers buffeted from pressures from east and west
On a Sunday night in mid-November last year, people gathered on the streets of Bucharest in their thousands to celebrate the choice of Klaus Iohannis as Romania’s next president; a liberal thinker and the first person from the country’s ethnic German Protestant minority to be elected. With a voting turnout of 62%, the highest in 14 years, Iohannis’s appointment was considered a surprise for this conservative, majority-Eastern Orthodox country.
While in essence a protest vote against the incumbent government and its socialist prime minister Victor Ponta, who ran a staunchly nationalist campaign, Iohannis’ election may well prove to be an asset for the nation. The centre-right leader’s plans to modernise Romania include establishing an anti-corruption regime – the country is widely regarded as among the most corrupt in Europe – focusing on the rule of law, safeguarding the independence of the judiciary and, equally important, winning western investment (well before the election, Romania regained its investment credit rating for the first time in six years from Standard & Poor’s). Most importantly, Iohannis’ election signals the increasingly progressive mood of the Romanian public, which is good news for the domestic and international law firms operating there.
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From suits to silks: the rise of the solicitor QC
The five solicitors to take Queen’s Counsel in the latest round of appointments had one thing in common: they were all arbitration specialists. While the number of solicitors taking silk remains low, the latest round, announced in January, saw the highest percentage of applicants from law firms, with 4% of the 223 applications coming from solicitors and a record percentage of successful solicitors taking silk, with 5.4% of the 93 new QCs coming from law firms.
Clifford Chance (CC)’s Audley Sheppard, Hogan Lovells’ Simon Nesbitt, Boies, Schiller & Flexner’s Wendy Miles, King & Spalding’s Thomas Sprange and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s Paris-based Peter Turner all made the cut.
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A robust year for M&A shows challenge for City leaders in competing with US rivals
With no single UK law firm having made a significant impact on the US market, it was no surprise that the Magic Circle surrendered more ground to their US peers in the annual M&A league tables for 2014, given the deal splurge US corporates have been on.
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Linklaters, Allen & Overy (A&O) and Clifford Chance (CC) all slipped down Thomson Reuters’ global adviser rankings for value of deals completed during 2014. Ironically, Slaughter and May, which markets to clients and US law firms for UK advisory spots on US deals, was the only Magic Circle firm to rise up the law firm rankings for global M&A, jumping from 28th to 12th.
Cultural revolution: will the UK Anti-Corruption Plan create a US enforcement regime?
Michael West reports on how a shift in enforcement will herald a raft of new advisory work
At the tail end of last year, the government launched its long-awaited UK Anti-Corruption Plan, a disparate collection of actions, initiatives and priorities aimed at improving the UK’s transparency, strengthening investigation powers and toughening enforcement options. The strategy, if implemented, will mean an increasing workload for defence lawyers and further overhaul of companies’ compliance regimes.
The tide is high – the report card on the world’s top offshore players
With global corporate markets experiencing a resurgence in 2014, the strongest offshore law firms had key roles to play in the world’s most high-profile deals and disputes. Legal Business’ annual offshore survey assesses recent highlights and profiles the leading offshore law firms.
In many ways, the last 12 months have represented another robust year for the ten largest global offshore law firms. In our first annual report on those firms last year, a number cited double-digit increases in revenues on the previous year. This year, a number are again reporting significant growth.
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Slaughters, Davis Polk and Skadden cash in on Shire’s biggest ever takeover
Dublin-headquartered Shire, took to the January sales with the $1.5bn it received in a break-fee from US pharma giant AbbVie following the collapse of their proposed $55bn tie-up late last year, securing the acquisition of biotech firm NPS Pharma.
The company returned to Slaughter and May, which drafted the AbbVie break-fee due to the political climate around tax inversion deals, to advise on the purchase of biotech NPS for $5.2bn. The deal is Shire’s largest-ever acquisition and comes amid increased pressure to deliver shareholder value.
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The firm most likely – can anything halt Latham’s global rise?
The most upwardly mobile member of the international elite has handed its leadership to a ‘global hawk’. Can anything halt the rise of Latham & Watkins?
At the end of a lengthy call mulling the prospects of Latham & Watkins amid a once-in-a-generation change of leadership, one Allen & Overy partner summarises: ‘They’re still doing better than we are though! Can you hand Bill [Voge] my CV when you see him!’
Indeed. To many neutral observers, Latham has been the most upwardly mobile firm in the upper echelons of the global legal market in the last 20 years, having transformed itself into an international force after deciding to go international in 2000. This rise was overseen by long-term head Bob Dell, one of the most forward thinking and admired leaders in the US legal market. Having led the firm for 20 years, Dell in January handed over as chair and managing partner to fellow Latham veteran Bill Voge (pictured).
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Birmingham’s £307m NEC sale puts the limelight on Eversheds, WLG and Gateley
Lloyds’ private equity arm acquires landmark event venue
Birmingham City Council brought in the New Year with one of its largest ever sales with Eversheds, Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co (WLG) and Gateley all winning mandates on the sale of the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) to Lloyds Banking Group’s private equity arm LDC.
WLG acted for the council on the £307m deal, which is for all NEC Group businesses except the leases of the Hilton Metropole and Crowne Plaza hotels. That included a 125-year lease for the NEC site itself plus a 25-year leasehold interest in the International Convention Centre and Barclaycard Arena. The transaction involved a substantial amount of property work as well as corporate aspects and saw Eversheds act for LDC, with Gateley for the management.
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US financials 2014: Baker Botts grows revenues 11% as turnover picks-up at Dechert, McDermott and Goodwin Procter
Following Weil Gotshal & Manges’ impressive profit increase, other US firm numbers continue to paint a positive picture Stateside with Baker Botts recording 11% revenue growth while Dechert, Goodwin Procter and McDermott Will & Emery all see increased turnover.
Global Law Summit misses the mark and a big opportunity
Here at Legal Business we like to set the agenda, so we’re feeling ahead of the game in pointing out shortcomings with this month’s Global Law Summit, the government-backed initiative to celebrate the 800-year anniversary of Magna Carta and British traditions of the rule of law.
The event has been attracting mounting controversy, including last month a scatter-gun attack in The Telegraph (who knew that Telegraph Media Group were such staunch socialists?) and wider criticism of elitism (some fair, some not).
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