After Australian-listed Slater & Gordon demonstrated the benefits of greater access to capital by using a share offer to part fund its £637m Quindell acquisition, Gateley has confirmed it is set to gain the same advantages by floating on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM listing this year.
Continue reading “Taking the plunge: Gateley set to be UK’s first firm to float”
King & Spalding’s recent recruits in the City have helped handle Californian biotech company Verseon £300m stock market listing in London while Covington & Burling advised from San Francisco.
Continue reading “Listing in London – King & Spalding carries US biotech to AIM listing”
The in-house profession has doubled in size in the UK over the last 15 years and gained once unthinkable levels of influence in delivering legal services to corporate Britain. And what have the profession and its watchdogs done to recognise that seismic shift in the legal industry, with all its far-reaching ethical implications? Pretty much nothing.
Continue reading “Comment: Going native – ethics and the modern GC”
Former education secretary Michael Gove has replaced Chris Grayling (pictured) as Secretary of State for Justice as part of Prime Minister David Cameron’s post-election reshuffle while Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher partner, Lord Falconer, has been named as the Labour Party’s opposition spokesperson for the ministry.
Scottish firm Simpson & Marwick’s well-regarded, 15-strong, family law team, including its current head Shaun George, has quit the firm to join Brodies.
Continue reading “Hiring the team: 15-strong group exits Simpson & Marwick to join Brodies”
Following the failed merger attempt between Scottish firm Simpson & Marwick and Kennedys in 2013, UK top-20 firm Clyde & Co is hoping to seal the deal this time having confirmed it is in advanced merger talks with the Scots outfit.
Continue reading “Can Clydes seal the deal? Firm in advanced merger talks with Simpson & Marwick”
Securitisation has taken a battering in recent years. A complex financing technique, little understood by the public, it was an easy scapegoat as a principal cause of the global financial crisis. For a while after the crisis it seemed as if various supervisory authorities would regulate it to the point of extinction.
It has turned out to be the biggest election upset since 1992 and months of polling have been proved wrong but as the final results from the 2015 UK general election come in, the Conservative Party looks highly likely to win enough support to secure a working majority.
DLA Piper has made its first foray into the consultancy business, launching corporate finance advisory arm Noble Street to focus on media and sports ventures that have been neglected by traditional banks.
Continue reading “A Noble pursuit – DLA Piper launches corp fin boutique to build TMT profile”
Many admire John Kennedy and his advisers’ deft handling of the Cuban missile crisis. It is generally thought to result from some of the best-judged decisions of the era. Yet a year earlier, much the same group of people decided to support the Bay of Pigs invasion (a crackpot scheme for the invasion of Cuba in which the US pitted 1,600 men against 200,000), conversely thought of as one of the most idiotic.
In a unanimous vote, Simmons & Simmons has voted through a new three-year business plan with a focus on strengthening referral relationships in the US, transforming its partner-client relationships and committing to a set of firm-wide values.
On 24 March 2015 Legal Business held the GC Power List 2015 reception, sponsored by RPC, Barclay Simpson and Thomson Reuters at the Grosvenor Hotel, London.
Photos from the event can be viewed here.
Continue reading “Legal Business Awards – GC Power List 2015 Reception”
Osborne Clarke (OC) has promoted five associate directors to its UK partnership, taking its total number of partners past the 200 mark for the first time.
Law firm partners at major City firms are facing the prospect of a substantive hike in tax if the Labour Party forms a government in this month’s general election with current manifesto pledges expected to see many partners at LB100 firms with a five-figure increase in their annual tax bill.
The partnership at Clifford Chance (CC) has voted through proposed changes to its remuneration system which will see the firm deploy a more flexible lockstep by stretching the top of the ladder in a bid to retain star partners.
Following troubled markets in Russia across 2014, a handful of firms have signalled a renewed interest in the region, with Kennedys being the most recent to set up a Russian base.
I’m always in the present and think of the now.
You make your own luck. You have to put yourself in harm’s way. You have to be standing by the street when the ambulance goes by or you’re not going to be able to chase it. There’s a degree of intelligent positioning.
I come from a generation who have been very lucky. The role of law firms and lawyers went through a dramatic transformation in the 1980s with the Big Bang, and my generation rode that wave.
The internet and the emergence of a global market for high-end series has ushered in a golden age of TV production and seismic changes to the media environment. Legal Business reports on the lawyers working in one of the fastest-changing industries.
These days, the small screen is big business. Popular television programmes, like period drama Downton Abbey, cost an average of around £1m to produce per hour of screen time, whereas fantasy epic Game of Thrones has reached new financial heights, with a budget of up to $8m (£5.3m) per episode.
Continue reading “The court of King Content – the lawyers making their mark in the high end TV”
After a relatively stable coalition government, Britain goes to the polls amid huge uncertainty, with the main parties far apart on key policies. Legal Business assesses the manifestos to identify the issues impacting the City and the profession.
‘You can follow all the polls but the money is a much more reliable guide,’ observes one Magic Circle partner. ‘At Ladbrokes you can get the odds on who’s going to be prime minister after the election, but this is not on 8 May but August. They think it will take that long to sort it all out.’
Continue reading “Fault lines – tax, Brexit and what the general election means to City lawyers”
Miriam González Durántez’s profile is sky-high. She’s one of the most successful EU lawyers in the City, has persuaded over 15,000 women to volunteer for her Inspiring Women campaign and is the wife of Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. In an interview with Tom Moore she argues that the EU is undervalued in the City and how law can smash its glass ceilings.
Your practice is something of a rarity outside Brussels. Why have City law firms neglected EU law?
