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  • September 20, 2012 |

    Honeymoon period for foreign firms in Hong Kong seems over as IPO slowdown prompts fee drop

    Slump in HK IPO market has seen pricing fall by as much as 40%, as Elizabeth Broomhall discovers

    1 minute read

  • September 13, 2012 |

    Freshfields breaks lockstep in Asia to stave off US firm advances

    Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has taken steps to protect its Asian partnership from US firms' advances by breaking away from its lockstep and allowing new partners to be promoted more quickly in the region, it has emerged.

    1 minute read

  • September 6, 2012 |

    Rethinking the firm/client relationship - a conversation with Axiom CEO Mark Harris

    If one party to an exchange is satisfied and one is miserable, somebody struck a terrific bargain. But if both parties are miserable, the exchange needs to be reconceived from the ground up. The law firm/client relationship was, he felt, firmly in the latter camp...

    1 minute read

  • August 16, 2012 |

    Four US firms in the picture as Carlyle snaps up Getty for £2.1bn

    Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, Weil Gotshal & Manges, Debevoise & Plimpton and Davis Polk & Wardwell have snapped up advisory roles as the Carlyle Group yesterday (15 August) agreed to acquire Getty Images for $3.3bn (£2.1bn), writes the Am Law Daily. The acquisition of the world's largest archived photo distributor comes three months after reports surfaced that private equity firm Hellman & Friedman was looking to sell as much as $4bn (£2.5bn).

    1 minute read

  • August 2, 2012 |

    Herbert Smith and Slaughters lead on $1.5bn Chinese North Sea purchase

    Herbert Smith and Slaughter and May have advised on a $1.5bn (£959m) energy M&A deal which has seen China's Sinopec acquire almost half of Talisman Energy's UK North Sea business. The Chinese energy and petrochemical giant has taken a 49% stake in Talisman Energy (UK) Limited, which owns 46 North Sea fields and operates 11 offshore platforms.

    1 minute read

  • July 26, 2012 |

    Disruptive innovation: has Axiom got what it takes to break up the law firm party?

    "We came to the conclusion that [the temporary staffing] model works well. But if we wanted to be transformative, we have to do more than that. We have to be scalable..." Look out law firms, Axiom is trying to beat you at your own game, as Drew Combs discovers

    1 minute read

  • July 24, 2012 |

    Davis Polk, Paul Weiss among firms on $15bn China-Canada energy deal

    Herbert Smith is advising alongside a raft of US and Canadian law firms on the $15.1bn (£9.7bn) acquisition of Canadian oil and gas company Nexen by China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), reports The Am Law Daily. Davis Polk & Wardwell is advising state-owned energy giant CNOOC, with a corporate team including New York partners George Bason and Leonard Kreynin, as well as Beijing partner Howard Zhang and Hong Kong partner Kirtee Kapoor.

    1 minute read

  • July 12, 2012 |

    That escalating Libor scandal – a great big wind, but not an ill one for lawyers

    "Law firms are having a field day on Libor," comments a London litigation head at a US law firm, summing up the private mood in the week following Barclays' admission to manipulating global interest rates. Even for banking advisers grown used to continually expanding levels of contentious and regulatory work from institutional clients, the furore in the wake of the bank's announcement that it had agreed a $450m (£290m) settlement looks to kick things up to a whole new level, legally speaking

    1 minute read

  • July 8, 2012 |

    CC takes on double Libor role for Barclays and RBS with Chinese wall

    Clifford Chance (CC) is advising both Barclays and the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) on the fallout from the Libor scandal, with a Chinese wall set up to avoid potential conflicts. The magic circle firm has been instructed as UK counsel to Barclays alongside US firm Sullivan & Cromwell, which recently advised the bank on its multimillion-dollar settlement with US regulators for interest rate manipulation and false accounting charges.

    1 minute read

  • July 6, 2012 |

    Hong Kong: Coming out on its own

    As a gateway to China, Hong Kong has drawn huge interest from foreign law firms. Alice Gartland asks if it is set to become a key market in itself

    1 minute read