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  • January 28, 2009 |

    Mayer Brown property litigation partner quits for Howard Kennedy

    Mayer Brown London property litigation partner Michele-Anne Freyne has left the firm to join Howard Kennedy. Freyne, who headed up the property litigation group at the international firm, will hold the same position at Howard Kennedy, where she joins as a partner.She officially took up her role at Howard Kennedy earlier this month (19 January) and will work alongside litigation head Craig Emden.

    1 minute read

  • January 26, 2009 |

    Beachcroft lands Orange role after panel review

    Orange UK has completed a review of its legal advisers, with Beachcroft among the firms to win a place on the telecoms company's newly-expanded roster. The review, Orange's first in three years, sees the company increase its number of advisers to 13. Other new firms added to the panel include regional firm Ward Hadaway and Northern Ireland's Worthingtons.

    1 minute read

  • January 23, 2009 |

    Cads lays off nine associates as another partner quits

    Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft is set to make nine redundancies in the US, with six associates to be laid off in New York and three in Charlotte. The firm has also seen the departure of the chair of its insurance and reinsurance department, Clifford Schoenberg, who has left to join Mayer Brown - the firm's third partner loss in the US this month.Schoenberg's move follows the defection earlier this month of the co-chair of the firm's financial restructuring group, Bruce Zirinsky, along with restructuring litigation partner John Bae - who both quit for Greenberg Traurig - and the walkout of a seven-partner team from the firm's London office last week.

    1 minute read

  • January 22, 2009 |

    Boston Consulting plans Euro legal team overhaul

    Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is planning to ramp up its European legal team as the firm moves to reduce its external legal spend and review its advisers. The management consulting group, which has more than 60 offices worldwide, is set to bring in three new legal positions in Europe - including a continental legal chief. The move will mark a departure for BCG, as legal chief Jeremy Barton, who joined the organisation in May last year, is currently the only lawyer in BCG's seven-strong team based outside the US. Barton, who was previously global general counsel at Ernst & Young, is leading the initiative, with the new lawyers expected to be in place within the next few months.

    1 minute read

  • January 7, 2009 |

    Mayer Brown transfers corporate partner to HK arm

    Mayer Brown has transferred a senior corporate partner from London to Hong Kong, the first such move by the Anglo-American firm since its 2007 acquisition of leading Hong Kong practice Johnson Stokes & Master. Corporate finance specialist Mark Uhrynuk will lead a new US corporate and securities practice, targeting Hong Kong and mainland China companies seeking to list abroad.Uhrynuk's practice covers cross-border M&A, private equity financings, joint ventures and strategic alliances.

    1 minute read

  • December 22, 2008 |

    Economic crisis shifts Asian spotlight to litigation

    The story of international law firms in Asia has long been all about transactions - infrastructure financings, foreign investment and, especially…

    1 minute read

  • December 22, 2008 |

    Commentary: Economic crisis shifts Asian spotlight to litigation

    The story of international law firms in Asia has long been all about transactions - infrastructure financings, foreign investment and, especially in recent years, blockbuster public offerings of mainland Chinese companies. But with capital markets in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Shanghai now as moribund as those in London or New York, a number of firms are finding an unexpected bright spot in the region: litigation. Linklaters announced last week it would relocate senior litigation partner Tom Lidstrom from London to Hong Kong in January, and other firms are also gearing up for an Asian disputes uptick as well."Contentious work is increasing across the board," says Mark Johnson, head of the Asian dispute resolution group for Herbert Smith in Hong Kong. "We are receiving a growing number of instructions from global and regional financial institutions. Much of this is directly or indirectly related to the credit crisis, including compliance issues and internal investigations."

    1 minute read

  • December 17, 2008 |

    Jones Day reveals 40 new partner promotions

    Jones Day has unveiled a bumper round of partnership promotions with 40 new partners added worldwide, including four in London. The new partners in the City are Edwin Borrini in banking and finance, Paul Bromfield in business restructuring and reorganisation, Alistair Grant private equity and Julian Runnicles in M&A. The new appointments bring the firm's total partner numbers in London up to 53 after a number of lateral hires over the year, including Peter Baldwin from Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft and Michael and Stephen Brown from Mayer Brown.

    1 minute read

  • December 11, 2008 |

    City litigators set to press ahead with judge appraisals

    The UK's top judges are to be appraised by court users, with litigators taking the matter into their own hands after plans for non-peer reviews were rejected by the judiciary. The Commercial Litigators Forum (CLF) is pushing ahead with proposals that will see judges subjected to upward reviews, even though the suggestions were snubbed by a working group set up by the Judges Council and overseen by Commercial Court head Mr Justice Andrew Smith earlier this year. The CLF has formed a sub-committee within the last month to come up with a framework for the appraisals, with members including litigation partners Hilton Mervis of SJ Berwin, Lovells' Neil Fagan, Herbert Smith's Tim Parkes, Simon Willis of Mayer Brown and John Reynolds of White & Case.

    1 minute read

  • December 10, 2008 |

    Behind the veil

    On Monday, January 21, 2008, back when extreme stock volatility was still a novelty, world equity markets plunged 6% with no full explanation apparent. Then, on Thursday, the mystery abated when at least a partial explanation for the sell-off appeared. The French bank Societe Generale (Soc Gen) announced that a young trader named Jerome Kerviel had somehow, without the bank noticing, bet A50bn that stock markets would rise. Soc Gen had spent the past few days desperately selling his positions - and set a new standard for rogue trading losses at A6.4bn. Hit by scandal and a potential legal mess, Soc Gen did what plenty of other rich and powerful French institutions would do in such a situation: It hired Jean Veil.

    1 minute read