Clyde & Co has made up five UK-based lawyers to partner as part of a nine-strong promotions round to take effect on Thursday (1 May). Last year the firm made up just two UK-based partners when it unveiled a slimmed-down promotions round, in which one partner was added to each of seven separate offices (1 […]
Davenport Lyons entered administration on Friday, a move that will allow it to be swallowed by eight-partner Mayfair firm Gordon Dadds. “We’re not on the verge of administration,” Davenport Lyons chief executive Richard Williams insisted just last month. Administration would only be triggered, he said, as part of a deal “with a much larger firm”. […]
Ashurst corporate partner Jonathan Earle has quit the firm to join Gibson Dunn’s London office. Earle, who specialises in cross-border M&A, has spent the past 16 years at the Appold Street firm. In 2013, he advised longstanding client William Hill in its joint bid alongside GVC for Sportingbet. The deal paid out £6.85m in legal […]
Conyers Dill & Pearman has provided British Virgin Islands (BVI) and Cayman Islands legal advice to Yuzhou Properties Company in connection with an international offering of up to $300m (£178m) principal amount of 8.625 per cent senior notes due 2019. This is ranking pari passu with all existing notes in issue, banking facilities and unsecured and unsubordinated indebtedness subject to […]
Conyers Dill & Pearman has provided British Virgin Islands (BVI) and Cayman Islands legal advice to YY Inc in connection with an international offering of $400m (£237m) principal amount of the company’s 2.25 per cent convertible senior notes due 2019, convertible into American depositary shares, each representing 20 class-A common shares of the company with par value $0.00001 per […]
Nationwide Building Society has named HSBC’s global general counsel Keith Ford as the replacement to its longstanding general counsel Liz Kelly. Kelly, who was appointed general counsel in 2007, resigned in October but remained in her post to oversee the introduction of a delayed general panel review (13 October 2013). Her second in command, deputy […]
Davenport Lyons went into administration on Friday (25 April) in a precursor to its client portfolio being acquired by Gordon Dadds. Terms of the sale were agreed with joint administrator Baker Tilly, weeks after Davenport’s chief executive Richard Williams insisted that the firm was not on the verge of administration (11 March 2014). The deal […]
DWF, Irwin Mitchell and Shoosmiths are on the shortlist to take over Lloyds’ retail and asset finance litigation teams, The Lawyer understands. The shortlist comes to light days after the general counsel of retail and wealth Stuart Morgan, the lawyer driving the project forward, resigned from the banking giant. Staff were told about his move […]
Firms have been frantic pondering HMRC’s new LLP rules and found a way to comply, but not how the taxman intended HM Revenue & Customs’ (HMRC) changes this month to the taxation of LLP members kicked off one of the biggest shake-ups in the UK legal market in years. In response to HMRC’s new tax rules, […]
Pinsent Masons finance director Steve Hancock is to retire from the firm as it gears up for the first contested leadership elections since incumbent managing partner David Ryan was elected in 1999. The firm has hired Taylor Wessing finance director Charlotte Beckett to succeed Hancock, who is stepping down after 16 years in the role […]
Appleby has become the first offshore firm to obtain a licence from China’s Ministry of Justice that allows it to offer offshore legal services in the country. Appleby has had a Shanghai base since 2012, but has so far only been permitted to provide fiduciary services prior to the legal practice licence gain. The firm […]
When HM Revenue & Customs unveiled its plans to overhaul the tax treatment of LLP members and, in the process, help Chancellor George Osborne push through his “largest ever” package of measures aimed at clamping down on tax avoidance and evasion, the UK’s top law firms inadvertently landed squarely in the taxman’s sights. In its […]