Latham & Watkins and Sullivan & Cromwell have won top roles on one the largest pharma M&A transactions of 2015, as Teva Pharmaceutical Industries agrees to buy Dublin-based Allergan for $40.5bn (£26bn). Latham & Watkins represented Allergan in the transaction with a corporate and M&A team led in New York, Orange County and London. US […]
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom have advised on the £844m deal to sell the Financial Times group to Japanese media firm Nikkei. The magic circle firm represented Pearson in the UK, while Skadden fielded a cross-border team of lawyers in Tokyo and London, representing first-time client Nikkei. Meanwhile Travers Smith […]
Specialist pensions insurer Rothesay Life has completed a £1.6bn bulk annuity deal with the Civil Aviation Authority Pension Scheme, the second largest ‘buy-in’ ever secured by a UK pension scheme. Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co’s (WLG) pensions experts advised longstanding client Rothesay on the deal, which also marks the UK’s largest de-risking transaction completed in 2015 […]
Bank of America general counsel Gary Lynch is stepping down from his role, four years after joining the bank. The bank is understood to be in the process of searching for Lynch’s replacement. Lynch presided over the bank’s legal team during one of the most critical periods of its existence, including it being hit with […]
Royal Mail general counsel Neil Harnby is leaving the company at the end of this year after four years at the helm of the company’s legal team. Harnby, who featured in The Lawyer’s Hot 100 list in 2014 and whose team won The Lawyer’s In-House Team of the Year award that same year, has decided to […]
Pinsent Masons has announced that it has acquired the majority stake in cloud-based compliance venture Cerico, which will be led by former McGrigors managing partner Richard Masters. In 2013 the firm partnered with Glasgow-based technology company Campbell Nash to launch the product, which automatically performs compliance checks on suppliers in multiple jurisdictions (10 June 2013). […]
GE has reviewed its finance and M&A European legal panel and it is understood that Allen & Overy (A&O), Slaughter and May and Weil Gotshal & Manges are among the firms winning a place. Other firms on the panel are understood to include Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Shearman & Sterling. It is not known if […]
Brodies has announced its fifth consective year of revenue and profit growth as turnover increased by 11.2 per cent, from £52.1m to £57.9m. During the previous year the firm saw turnover increase by 13.2 per cent from £46m to £52.1m (11 July 2014). Over the last decade Brodies has delivered a compound annual growth rate […]
In last year’s UK 200 we introduced a new ranking, the UK Market Register. This analysed the top 100 largest firms by their UK, as opposed to global, revenue. It included the UK operations of overseas-headquartered, primarily US-led, firms, at a stroke detailing the progress several of these had made in this market.
This week’s top briefings writers from TheLawyer.com cover corporate issues, such as how corporate lawyers can contribute to their country’s transactional success, what makes a great marketer, and whether firms should look east or west when drawing up their global strategy.
When Wragges and Gowlings merge next year numerous options will open up for the Anglo-Canadian firm to build on – and develop beyond – its IP and natural resources roots.
Better vendor support is high on the wish list of our e-disclosure panellists, while predictive coding has yet to gain the trust of UK clients and lawyers