Lawyers are supposed to be getting better with numbers – right? Not so, according to exclusive research of senior in-house lawyers conducted as part of The Lawyer’s Global Litigation Top 50 survey, which found lawyers are regularly underestimating litigation costs by as much as 100 per cent. Here’s the findings: 14 per cent of in-house […]
Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) has announced a 6 per cent increase in revenue for the first six months of the 2013/14 financial year. According to the firm its litigation and real estate practices were up and revenue from offices outside London increased. BLP brought in revenues of £233m for the full year in 2012/13 – […]
Allen & Overy has hired partner Peter McDonald from Herbert Smith Freehills to build up the firm’s antitrust and competition practice in Australia. McDonald will be based in Allen & Overy’s Sydney office and will be a partner of the firm’s global antitrust team. He joined legacy Freehills’ competition and market regulation group in Melbourne […]
The Canal & River Trust has appointed its first general counsel, after its legal and corporate services director Nigel Johnson announced plans to retire. He will be replaced by the Trust’s current head of legal, Jackie Lewis. Having joined British Waterways in 2001 and being promoted into the head of legal role in 2007, she […]
CMS Cameron McKenna’s partnership has elected Penelope Warne as its next senior partner, replacing the firm’s former managing partner Dick Tyler. Warne, who is currently managing director for the UK and head of the firm’s energy group, begins her four-year term on 1 May 2014. It is not known who else stood for the position. She […]
London just keeps on attracting US litigation firms hoping for a piece of the action, with Boies Schiller just the latest to arrive in the City. Is the market getting over-lawyered? Analysis: New Boies in town Charge of the lit brigade US litigators need London weight Litigation: all rise, as regulation and merger-mania drive growth […]
The debate over Scotland’s future has developed with last week’s guide to independence. The debate over Scotland’s constitutional future has moved on significantly since Christine O’Neill’s piece in The Lawyer last January, which discussed the legality of a Scottish independence referendum. The UK and Scottish governments were then arguing over whether the Scottish Parliament had […]
Swiss bankers used to have it pretty cushty. They would loaf about in sumptuous wood-panelled offices waiting for shady characters to drop off attaché cases bulging with spondulix in multiple currencies, pop it in the safe, hand over a number and light a couple of cigars to seal the deal. Providing interest on the deposit […]
Gide Loyrette Nouel is adding a team of nine lawyers from German firm Beiten Burkhardt in Ukraine, as the latter closes down its presence in the country. The team, led by partners Julian Ries and Oleksiy Feliv, will join Gide on 1 January. The news follows Beiten Burkhardt’s disposal of its Warsaw office to Austrian […]
DAC Beachcroft has merged with Colombian insurance firm De La Torre & Monroy Abogados Asociados and started trading as DAC Beachcroft Colombia yesterday (1 December). Having entered into a formal association with De La Torre & Monroy earlier this year (20 March 2013), DAC Beachcroft partners agreed the merger with a vote that closed on […]
DLA Piper has acted for Oncard International in the signing of a binding sale and purchase agreement with Great Bless Enterprises to sell its 50 per cent equity interest in its sino-joint venture company, Shanghai Smart Service Company (Smartpass) for AUD53.2m (£30m). The signing of the sale and purchase agreement is the fruition of Oncard’s […]
The gargantuan BT Sport-Uefa football deal was all the work of each side’s in-housers – private practice take note For anyone still naïve enough to doubt that the modern incarnation of association football is about anything but the money, a glance at a recent, extremely high-profile broadcast rights deal is essential. Sky Sport’s current arrangement, […]