Boodle Hatfield may have set a trend when it vacated its 300-year Mayfair seat, with firms – both in London and nationwide – being forced by soaring property prices to get creative with their real estate. Unless you’ve been living in total isolation for the past decade you’ll know a thing or two about London’s […]
This week’s top briefings writers from TheLawyer.com deal with issues relevant to in-house counsel, including a checklist for oral agreements, changes to the training regime and why digital investment is a priority for businesses. Gwendoline Davies, Walker Morris – ‘ Tips for those who enter oral agreements: a checklist for in-house lawyers’ https://www.thelawyer.com/briefings/tips-for-those-who-enter-oral-agreements-a-checklist-for-in-house-lawyers/3031637.article Totum – ‘ […]
Fees are on the rise in public M&A work, but the gap is widening between the billion-pound transactions and those of under £500m. Last year saw the return of big M&A – even if many of the largest transactions failed. Pfizer sought to take over AstraZeneca for £62bn, a move that was closely followed by […]
Despite the growth economy, it is still a buyer’s market. And while efficiency remains a major concern, client pressure is changing firms for the better. Q: As the new financial year gets under way, and the consensus appears to be that market conditions are more benign, to what extent do you believe the focus of […]
Crisis taxes and regulatory changes have doused foreign investor interest but firms are gaining opportunities elsewhere as a result of the global crash. Q: What impact have the so-called ‘crisis taxes’ imposed in 2010 had on your business and that of your clients? Do you think this has dissuaded foreign investors? Andrea Jádi Németh, managing […]
Finance partner David Eich featured in The Lawyer magazine’s Hot 100 at a pivotal time for Kirkland & Ellis, when the firm enlisted him to lead a local expansion effort in Hong Kong. “There was a lot of discussion at that time about how that investment would endure over time,” Eich says. “It was a […]
At the age of just 31, gas distribution network SGN’s general counsel Nicola Shand has already grown a six-strong legal team and landed herself a place on the company’s executive board. Becoming general counsel of a national gas mains distribution network with more than five million customers in your twenties is a daunting prospect, but […]
In the probably vain hope that everyone’s favourite baby-faced justice machine Michael Gove is a regular reader of Briefings Digest, we have a message for him: “Please, Mr Gove – take off those blinkers and realise that your responsibilities go well beyond the criminal justice system.” That’s the call of Chris Badger from The Sheriffs […]
This week’s U-turn concerning the decision to prosecute Lord Janner for alleged child sex offences has thrown a spotlight onto a procedure in English criminal law called the “trial of the act”. What is this procedure and what purpose does it serve? And why has its application to Lord Janner’s case proved controversial? A trial […]
I feel like I’m five, says C, waving his arms high in the air and simulating an exaggerated knife and fork movement. The chairs in the raised section of the restaurant are too low or the tables are too high, it doesn’t matter which. Obviously, I point this out and the maître d’ suggests I […]
King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) regulatory partner Gregg Beechey has become the latest lawyer to exit the firm this week, set to join Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson in London. Beechey had been at the firm since 2000, joining the pre-merger SJ Berwin from Schroders, where he was a compliance assistant. It is understood that […]
Schoenherr has advised UNION Investment Real Estate GmbH, one of Europe’s leading property investment management companies, on several prominent real estate acquisitions that the Hamburg-based group has made in Vienna. Most recently, UNION Investment purchased the space2move office complex (a LEED Gold-certified project with approximately 50,000 m² of lettable space split across three objects that […]