The Co-operative Bank has named Brona McKeown as its new general counsel and company secretary, a month after announcing the split of its legal function. McKeown joins the Co-op from Coventry Building Society, where she was interim general counsel and corporate secretary. She previously worked at Barclays in roles including global general counsel of Barclays […]
DLA Piper is set to expand its German corporate practice with partners Dr Jan Schinköth and Dominik Stühler. Both are moving from Kirkland & Ellis to the Munich office of DLA Piper as of 1 December 2013. Schinköth and Stühler are corporate lawyers with a special focus on private equity. They provide advice to private […]
The ebbs and flows in global corporate work are unpredictable, but in our number crunching series of corporate deals data you can discern where the trends are. Click below to find out what’s happening in IPO and BRIC-related work. Number crunching: Hong Kong IPOs Number crunching: Tech IPOs Number crunching: Brazilian IPOs Number crunching: Russian […]
Partner rates at US firms in London have spiralled 87.5 per cent since 2009 with top-end hourly rates hitting £700 per hour, according to new research. An annual hourly rates survey carried out by costs lawyer Jim Diamond has revealed dramatic increases in charge-out rates across the UK legal market, with magic circle rates up 62 […]
West End firm Davenport Lyons is looking to trim its trainee intake, following a “peak” of recruiting eight trainees annually. The firm has recruited six trainees for its 2014 intake and four trainees for the 2015 intake, with the possibility of increasing that number over the next couple of months to six trainees. Davenport Lyons […]
Olswang is launching a business dedicated to restructuring and insolvency through a strategic partnership with a German insolvency lawyer. Restructuring specialist Christian Köhler-Ma will lead consultancy business Olswang Restructuring Solutions, which will provide advice to German companies and other stakeholders in crises and near-critical situations. Köhler-Ma was previously senior partner at Berlin firm Leonhardt Rechtsanwälte. […]
Slater & Gordon announced its largest acquisition to date today, with the £33m takeover of Pannone’s consumer business. It has been a deal months in the making. Hannah Gannage-Stewart looks at the behind-the-scenes negotiations Finally, after months of painful deliberation, due diligence is almost complete and Slater & Gordon has confirmed that a sale agreement […]
DLA Piper has represented ACTIVE Network, a San Diego-based software company, in its $1.05bn (£640m) acquisition by Vista Equity Partners, the largest internet-leveraged buyout in 2013. Vista acquired all of the outstanding shares of ACTIVE Network’s common stock for $14.50 per share in cash, representing a premium of approximately 111 per cent to ACTIVE Network’s […]
Twelve Walker Morris volunteers have been participating in the seventh Leeds Law Society’s Education Week, which has seen 150 volunteers from 13 law firms across the city hoping to support young people in raising their aspirations to the employment opportunities available to them. The volunteers have been visiting primary schools in some of the most deprived inner-city areas […]
Allen & Overy’s Singapore office is hosting an ICC Institute Masterclass for Arbitrators, an advanced-level course for practitioners wanting to gain more experience of sitting as arbitrator. Speakers include Michael Young, co-head of the global arbitration group at Allen & Overy and alternate member of the ICC International Court of Arbitration. The course is being […]
A decision handed down by the UK Court of Appeal earlier this month provides useful guidance on the correct approach to defining the market in relation to pharmaceutical products. The Court of Appeal held that a patented pharmaceutical product should not be regarded as a distinct market. In its judgment, the Court of Appeal dismissed […]
In Equitas v Walsham Bros, the Commercial Court ruled on a number of key legal issues concerning the duties owed by Lloyd’s brokers to remit funds promptly to clients and reinsurers. Equitas is the successor to Lloyd’s syndicates writing non-life insurance business for the 1992 and all prior years of account. Equitas’s case was that […]