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  • October 14, 2013 |

    Macfarlanes builds real estate practice with Ashurst hire

    Macfarlanes has added to its commercial real estate practice with the hire of Ashurst partner Anthony Burnett-Scott. The announcement follows the recent additions to the practice of partners Clare Breeze, who joined from Shearman and Sterling in July and Ann Minogue, also from Ashurst, in August.

    1 minute read

  • October 10, 2013 |

    Top firms set to do battle at 2013 British Legal Awards

    Linklaters is leading the way in nominations for the top practice awards as the shortlist for the 2013 British Legal Awards has been unveiled. The magic circle has nominations M&A, banking, financing or restructuring, and commercial team of the year categories. However, it missed out on the law firm of the year shortlist.

    1 minute read

  • September 25, 2013 |

    Shearman and Skadden lead on $4.7bn bid to acquire BlackBerry

    Shearman & Sterling and Canadian firm McCarthy Tetrault are advising Fairfax Financial on its $4.7bn (£2.9bn) offer for struggling smartphone maker BlackBerry. Fairfax, BlackBerry's largest shareholder with a stake of approximately 10%, is offering $9 a share in cash to acquire the remaining shares in the firm, which is being advised by Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom and Canada's Torys.

    1 minute read

  • September 24, 2013 |

    Tencent appoints Paul Weiss and Bakers for $448m Sogou deal

    Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison and Baker & McKenzie have advised as the owner of WeChat, Tencent Holdings, has taken a 35.6% stake in Chinese search engine Sogou for $448m. The deal, which is the latest in a string of mergers and acquisitions among Chinese internet companies, will see the two businesses jointly develop and cross-promote their products, with Sogou Pinyin and Sogou Search gaining access to the user base of Tencent's online and mobile social communities.

    1 minute read

  • September 18, 2013 |

    Shearman becomes best friends with Italian tax outfit Tremonti

    Shearman & Sterling has launched a non-exclusive best-friends agreement with leading Italian tax firm Tremonti Vitali Romagnoli Piccardi. The two firms expect the arrangement to "enhance the breadth and geographic reach of their services" by offering an integrated tax and corporate service to both international and Italian clients.

    1 minute read

  • September 15, 2013 |

    Slaughters' White takes up non-exec position at diversity company

    Former Slaughter and May executive partner Graham White has been appointed to the board of diversity recruitment company Rare. White will take up a non-executive position on Rare's board alongside four other non-executive directors including former Financial Times chairman David Bell and former Unisys general counsel and board member Sandra Teichman.

    1 minute read

  • September 12, 2013 | International Edition

    The home guard – the missing identity of global law firms

    If year-on-year fee increases and a buoyant M&A market imbued a certain stasis, five years of economic woes have certainly driven change through the conservative legal profession. The comparative proliferation of global giants of the ilk of Hogan Lovells, Norton Rose Fulbright and, more recently, King & Wood Mallesons SJ Berwin (KWM) serve as fine examples of the diverging market, with an increasingly international client base driving the case for cross-border mergers.

    1 minute read

  • September 12, 2013 |

    Wall Street weighs up the world – are New York's elite committed to competing on a global level?

    In 1989, only seven million Americans owned a passport – a derisory 3% of the US population and a figure that was oft-brandished by scornful Europeans. Since then the situation has improved markedly, with a far more respectable 110 million of the country's 313 million citizens holding a valid passport at the last count. That still lags the 70% of British passport-holders, but the change shows a US that has taken up full residence in the global village – an unavoidable response to the emergence of rival economic powerhouses such as China.

    1 minute read

  • September 12, 2013 |

    The home guard – the missing identity of global law firms

    If year-on-year fee increases and a buoyant M&A market imbued a certain stasis, five years of economic woes have certainly driven change through the conservative legal profession. The comparative proliferation of global giants of the ilk of Hogan Lovells, Norton Rose Fulbright and, more recently, King & Wood Mallesons SJ Berwin (KWM) serve as fine examples of the diverging market, with an increasingly international client base driving the case for cross-border mergers.

    1 minute read

  • September 12, 2013 |

    BLP launches Africa review as firm eyes new markets across closely watched continent

    Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) has kicked off a review of its Africa three-year strategy with a focus on markets driven by energy, mining and infrastructure work. The firm's core Africa group, which comprises five partners in London headed up by banking disputes partner Segun Osuntokun (pictured), has already identified several key jurisdictions it wants to target, including Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia.

    1 minute read