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  • December 10, 2008 |

    Italy: Jostling for position

    Italian lawyers have a history of finding international law firms as unpalatable as a drop of cream in their afternoon coffee. Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance, Linklaters, McDermott Will & Emery, and White & Case all bear the marks of high-profile partner departures, failed mergers, and collapsed alliances in Italy. Most have struggled to challenge the hegemony of the elite independent Italian practices, led by the trio of Bonelli Erede Pappalardo, Chiomenti Studio Legale, and Gianni, Origoni, Grippo & Partners. But for Latham & Watkins and Linklaters, history is no barrier to entry. Throughout 2007, both firms announced ambitious raids on Italian firms to launch outposts focused, at least initially, on winning high-end corporate and finance work. Linklaters made a series of hires from Allen & Overy and local practices Pedersoli e Associati, Bonelli and Camozzi Bonissoni Varrenti e Associati to build an eight-partner team of corporate, finance, and capital markets lawyers. In one fell swoop, Latham took a five-partner team from Bonelli, giving the firm its first Italian-qualified lawyers, split between Milan and Rome, to augment a US and English-qualified team of Italian specialists in London and Brussels.

    1 minute read

  • December 10, 2008 |

    France: Vive l'independence

    Nixon Peabody has become the latest US law firm to fall under the spell of La Ville Lumiere. This autumn it opened a Paris practice with 26 lawyers from UK firm Taylor Wessing, including 13 partners. They joined other recent newcomers Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis, which has set up a labour and employment practice in the French capital, and Bryan Cave, which established a small Paris outfit this summer after opening Italian and German branches in 2007. The latest Americans in Paris are jumping into a market that local lawyers already describe as extremely competitive - and France's hardcore of solidly independent firms does not appear overly concerned about their arrivals, with most offering little more than a Gallic shrug. The haemorrhaging of partners to Anglo-Saxon rivals appears to have let up, with US and UK firms primarily raiding other international outfits for their partners these days.

    1 minute read

  • December 3, 2008 |

    Commentary: Banking regulation work emerges as the new private equity

    Has there ever been a better time be a specialist in financial services regulation? For years, such lawyers toiled away little-noticed within a dozen or so major commercial firms, prospering in sizeable numbers in Allen & Overy (A&O), Clifford Chance (CC) and CMS Cameron McKenna. But despite the creation of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) a decade ago, this group was hardly the most visible or loved of its breed, despite in recent years enjoying some of the highest charge-out rates in the City.

    1 minute read

  • December 3, 2008 | International Edition

    Slaughters, SJB lead on BA-Qantas merger talks

    Slaughter and May and SJ Berwin have landed leading roles as British Airways (BA) and Qantas enter into merger talks. Slaughters M&A head Stephen Cooke has taken the lead for regular client BA which confirmed yesterday (2 December) that it was exploring a potential merger with Qantas via a dual-listed company structure.

    1 minute read

  • December 3, 2008 |

    Slaughters, SJB lead on BA-Qantas merger talks

    Slaughter and May and SJ Berwin have landed leading roles as British Airways (BA) and Qantas enter into merger talks. Slaughters M&A head Stephen Cooke has taken the lead for regular client BA which confirmed yesterday (2 December) that it was exploring a potential merger with Qantas via a dual-listed company structure.

    1 minute read

  • December 1, 2008 |

    Citi fund seals $10bn motorway company buy-out

    Citi Infrastructure Partners has completed the $10bn (£6.75bn) purchase of a Spanish motorway operator from a company struggling with billions in debts, reports The Am Law Daily. Citi Infrastructure, a fund run by Citigroup, purchased motorway operator Itinere from Sacyr Vallehermoso, a Spanish construction company looking to raise money to pay off debts of $24bn (£16.2bn).Citi Infrastructure relied on in-house counsel and advice from CMS Albinana & Suarez de Lezo's team in Madrid.

    1 minute read

  • November 27, 2008 |

    JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley join fee cutting drive

    JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley are among a roster of leading banks attempting to slash fee agreements with panel law firms. Both banks are known to have contacted preferred advisers within the last month with a view to securing a reduction in fees - thought to be up to 15% - going forward. Banks including Lloyds TSB and Deutsche Bank are also understood to be in discussions with legal advisers with fees thought to be a key consideration.

    1 minute read

  • November 26, 2008 |

    Managing a law firm: Daddy day care

    In the last generation there has been a shift in attitude towards male lawyers taking time off to care for their children. What was once looked on as a perk is swiftly beginning to be seen as a right at firms in the US. Kirkland & Ellis, White & Case and Morrison & Foerster all give upwards of four weeks' paid leave to male lawyers at all levels working in their US offices. And one recent case in the Weil Gotshal & Manges Boston office saw a lawyer take an unprecedented 10 weeks' paid paternity leave.

    1 minute read

  • November 24, 2008 |

    Wall St duo lead on US Government's Citi bailout

    Davis Polk & Wardwell and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton have taken lead roles on the US Government's high-profile rescue plan for Citi, announced last night (23 November). The two Wall Street firms picked up the mandates as the US Government agreed on a rescue deal including a $20bn (£13bn) direct investment into the banking giant.Davis Polk advised Citi fielding a high-profile New York team including three practice group heads - M&A head George Bason, financial institutions head Randall Guynn, and tax head Avishai Shachar. M&A partner Louis Goldberg was also part of the team.

    1 minute read

  • November 19, 2008 |

    Many balls in the air

    At 7:30am on 12 September, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton managing partner Mark Walker got a call from Barclays Bank. The bank - a sometime client of the firm - was pursuing the purchase of Lehman Brothers, and wanted Cleary on the deal.At that point, Walker was already up to the eyeballs in the Lehman meltdown, so he was conflicted out. Also, he says, the Barclays deal was not exactly in his area of expertise. Still, Walker wanted Cleary to get the work, and he had to act fast in order to find lawyers to do the work - conflict-free lawyers.

    1 minute read