The Groceries Code Adjudicator Act 2013 came into force on 25 June 2013. The act established the Groceries Code Adjudicator to enforce the Grocery Supply Code of Practice. The code was designed to remedy certain adverse effects on competition identified by the Competition Commission relating to the supply of groceries in the UK. The code […]
On 20 December 2013, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) approved a series of broad comparability determinations permitting substituted compliance for non-US swap dealers (SDs) and major swap participants (MSPs) in the following regulatory regimes: Australia, Canada, the European Union, Hong Kong, Japan and Switzerland (the enumerated jurisdictions). Substituted compliance refers to the circumstances under […]
Welcome to the fourth edition of Debevoise & Plimpton’s Arbitration Quarterly, a collection of interesting and significant current developments in international arbitration. It has been a year replete with important developments for arbitral law and practice, and the last quarter was no exception. In this issue, Debevoise reports on 10 arbitration-related judicial decisions from courts […]
Conyers Dill & Pearman has advised Luxoft Holding, a European IT service provider, on all British Virgin Islands (BVI) law aspects of its secondary public offering. The secondary share sale was by nine-per-cent shareholder Rus Lux, a unit of Romanian investment bank VTB Capital, which raised $95.2m (£57m). Counsel Audrey M Robertson and associate Cora Miller […]
Conyers Dill & Pearman’s Dubai office has provided Cayman law advice to Mara Partners FS in connection with its founding shareholder subscription of ordinary shares and warrants of Atlas Mara Co-Nvest. Atlas Mara raised gross proceeds of $325m (£196m) in connection with its initial public offering (IPO) of ordinary shares, with warrants being issued to […]
Buckinghamshire County Council and the Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes Fire Authority have announced plans to form an ABS, becoming the latest public sector in-house teams to announce such a collaboration. The two in-house teams have applied for an ABS licence to operate as Buckinghamshire Law +, which will serve both the council and the fire […]
The Hong Kong Securities & Futures Commission (HKSFC) has appointed Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton partner Megan Tang as director in its corporate finance division. Tang will report to corporate finance division executive director Brian Ho when she joins the commission next month. The division is responsible for regulating takeover and merger activities, administering the dual […]
Lawrence Graham (LG) has lost its competition and regulation chief Rosemary Choueka to Bristows months before the firm is due to merge with Wragge & Co. The exit of Choueka, who joined LG from Linklaters in 2004 and has been head of the department since 2009, comes months before the firm merges to become Wragge […]
If you’re still in the office today, here’s the perfect accompaniment to your tea and mince pie break. It’s Thomson Reuters’ preliminary M&A table for 2013 – with firms ranked by the value of their announced public M&A deals with UK involvement from 1 January to 16 December. It certainly makes for an interesting read. […]
The UK Business Select Committee has raised concerns that there is an inconsistency in the proposed UK Consumer Bill Of Rights, regarding the provision of digital content. Matthew Gough, head of consumer law at Eversheds, has commented. He said: ‘The perceived inconsistency referred to in the proposed Consumer Rights Bill is the fact that someone […]
On 19 December 2013, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) rendered an important judgment concerning the interpretation of article 7 of Directive 96/9/EC regarding the legal protection of databases, in the context of the dedicated meta search engine www.gaspedaal.nl. The CJEU’s decision effectively bans the ‘scraping’ of databases and provides a strong […]
Holman Fenwick Willan’s (HFW’s) LLP accounts reveal that the firm increased its revenue by 13.7 per cent in the 2012/13 financial year. The firm witnessed its turnover increase from £124.2m to £141.4m, while its operating profit bounced up more than 20 per cent – from £43.4m to £53.3m. As a result, HFW’s profit available for […]