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  • February 17, 2010 |

    Russia and Ukraine: Standing their ground

    The ongoing turf war between Russia's independent and foreign law firms moved up a gear in 2009. Local lawyers, long resigned to sharing their market with the crowd of international firms that began arriving in droves at the end of the Soviet era, regained a little of that lost ground thanks to the economic downturn.

    1 minute read

  • February 15, 2010 |

    Bingham sets standard for London salaries with £100,000 pay for NQs

    Bingham McCutchen has emerged as one of the best-paying firms for newly-qualified (NQ) lawyers in London with NQ salaries of more than £100,000. The firm said that it pays New York rates, which currently stand at around $160,000 (£102,000) for NQs.

    1 minute read

  • February 10, 2010 |

    Cleary makes rare City lateral with hire of high-profile Simmons litigator

    Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton has made a rare lateral hire in the City, picking up high-profile finance litigator Jonathan Kelly from Simmons & Simmons. Kelly, one of the City's best-known banking litigators, will launch a dedicated UK litigation practice for Cleary on his arrival at the US firm in April.

    1 minute read

  • February 2, 2010 |

    Howrey recruits from Cleary to expand City competition team

    Howrey is set to boost its London arm with the hire of a competition partner from US rival Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, with the New York leader also seeing a capital markets partner depart for an in-house role. Shaun Goodman will join the top 50 US law firm next month (1 March) as the second full-time partner in Howrey's London antitrust group, which is led by partner Tom McQuail

    1 minute read

  • January 11, 2010 |

    US duo lead on Heineken's €5.3bn buyout of Mexican drinks company

    Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and Gibson Dunn & Crutcher have taken lead roles on Heineken's acquisition of Mexican drinks company FEMSA for €5.3bn (£4.8bn). FEMSA, the largest beverage company in Latin America, will receive a 20% stake in Heineken as part of the all-share deal, which sees Heineken take over FEMSA's beer business, which includes brands such as Sol.

    1 minute read

  • December 21, 2009 |

    Training and education: All tied up

    The last few years have seen the College of Law, BPP Law School and, to a lesser extent, Kaplan Law School jostle with each other to secure tie-ups with the top law firms. In the main, firms have been receptive to their advances, with the result being that the vast majority of UK top 20 law firms - and many top 50 firms and US firms with London offices - now have arrangements in place to send their future trainees to study the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) and Legal Practice Course (LPC) exclusively with a certain course provider.

    1 minute read

  • December 13, 2009 |

    Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton

    Manhattan's original internationalist, Cleary is arguably the best US firm in Europe, even if its best names are on the Continent. Unarguably the top payer in London.

    1 minute read

  • December 13, 2009 |

    Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft

    The pushy Noo Yawk firm that other Manhattan outfits think should calm down a bit. Its City arm is known for its work-hard-then-work-some-more stance but remains a niche finance practice with real bite.

    1 minute read

  • December 8, 2009 |

    European legal team of the year

    The judges were struck by the complexity of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton's work advising BNP Paribas on its acquisition of Fortis's Belgian operations. There is a very good case for dubbing the transaction the most politically-charged of all the credit crunch-related deals. The Belgian Government's decision to sell the debt-laden bank's Belgian assets to BNP Paribas caused such a political storm that it brought down the Government. The resulting shareholder litigation almost sank the deal. It was the first case of a bank being rescued by the state and then being sold onto the private sector. The team was spearheaded by Paris-based partner Pierre-Yves Chabert and Brussels partner Jan Meyers.

    1 minute read

  • December 8, 2009 |

    Delivering change

    Belgian Post general counsel and company secretary Dirk Tirez believes the expanding role of in-house lawyers has its roots in a process that runs deeper than the financial crisis. "For me it's about a gradual increase in professionalism among in-house counsel that we have been seeing for a while now. Do I see it being turned back when market conditions improve? No. Expectations have been raised in a way that would be impossible to reverse," he says.

    1 minute read