Filter This View

  • August 10, 2010 |

    Shearman partner joins King & Spalding to help launch new office in Singapore

    King & Spalding is set to open in Singapore with the hire of Shearman & Sterling international arbitration partner John Savage. The firm announced yesterday (9 August) that it has applied for a licence to set up an office in the region specialising in commercial arbitration and energy work.

    1 minute read

  • July 29, 2010 |

    International firms in Brazil under scrutiny as local Bar queries alliance business practices

    The Brazilian Bar Association has asked international firms with associations in Brazil to supply information about their businesses amid concerns they are not complying with local Bar rules. Following several hires made by the associated firms of DLA Piper and Mayer Brown, the Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil (OAB) has asked all international firms for information on their alliances, prompted by concerns that international firms are using their associations to recruit local lawyers.

    1 minute read

  • July 28, 2010 |

    Linklaters' Singapore JV firm advises on $2.6bn hospital chain buyout

    Linklaters' Singapore joint venture firm Allen & Gledhill has taken a lead role on the $2.6bn (£1.7bn) acquisition of Southeast Asia's largest hospital chain by Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund, reports The Am Law Daily. The bid by a wholly-owned subsidiary of Khazanah Nasional, an investment arm of the Malaysian Government, beat out a $2.3bn (£1.5bn) bid by India's Fortis Healthcare to acquire hospital chain Parkway Holdings. Khazanah was represented on the deal by Allen & Gledhill, Singapore's largest law firm. M&A co-heads Andrew Lim and Lim Mei led the team, which also included partner Lee Kee Ying. Allen & Gledhill also is advising Deutsche Bank and CIMB Bank Berhad, the financial advisers on the deal.

    1 minute read

  • July 23, 2010 |

    Letter from Asia: Should US firms build local practices in Hong Kong?

    The Agricultural Bank of China's initial public offering (IPO), expected to become the world's largest, debuted this week, landing squarely in the middle of a debate over whether leading Wall Street law firms should build local practice capability in Hong Kong. The IPO on the Hong Kong and Shanghai exchanges would seem an obvious rallying cry for those arguing that top US capital markets firms will miss out on deals without their own Hong Kong lawyers - except that the lead lawyers on the AgBank deal are from New York's Davis Polk & Wardwell, which only practises US law.

    1 minute read

  • July 21, 2010 |

    Eversheds and SJ Berwin hit sweet spot with roles on ice cream takeover

    Eversheds has advised R&R Ice Cream on the takeover of French ice cream manufacturer Rolland. The deal will make R&R the second-biggest selling ice cream manufacturer in terms of supermarket sales in the UK, Germany and France. The Eversheds team was led by Eric Knai, a partner in the firm's Paris corporate group.

    1 minute read

  • July 21, 2010 |

    Financial regulation: Hunting the hunter

    The FSA is to be broken up as part of a huge shake-up of regulation by the new Government - despite strong misgivings from City professionals. Alex Aldridge charts the watchdog's rise and fall and looks at the new bodies that will replace it

    1 minute read

  • July 15, 2010 |

    Cleary and Shearman sign off deal double on HSBC securities offers

    Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and Shearman & Sterling have lined up on a series of finance deals for banking giant HSBC. The most recent deal saw HSBC offer $2bn (£1.3bn) worth of senior notes with a five-year term, with regular adviser Cleary instructed to provide UK, US and Russian law advice. Moscow-based corporate partner David Gottlieb led the team, assisted by associate Blake Klein.

    1 minute read

  • July 9, 2010 |

    A lifetime of litigation - the fall of Yukos

    Seven years have passed since Russia began the campaign against Yukos Oil Company that led to the re-nationalisation of a business controlling more than 3% of world oil production, comparable in scale to Chevron. The dispossessed owners call it the biggest political expropriation in history. The fall of Yukos has generated history's biggest arbitrations - and by far the largest human rights claim ever - with stakes as high as $100bn (£66bn). The director of the majority shareholder group, Timothy Osborne, vowed a "lifetime of litigation" against those responsible, and he is well on his way.

    1 minute read

  • July 7, 2010 |

    From Paris to Africa

    Crushed frogs. That's what a witch doctor in Zaire slathered on Jean-Claude Petilon's legs a few hours before he played his first game with a local basketball team. "The frog lotion would make us jump higher," Petilon recalls. Today, a photograph of the team hangs on the wall of Petilon's Paris office, which is off a courtyard near the Opera Garnier. Petilon, a French national, is the only white man in the picture. When it was taken in 1974, he was a young lawyer who had been dispatched to Kinshasa, the capital of Zaire - now the Democratic Republic of Congo - to open an office for what was then Duncan Allen & Mitchell.

    1 minute read

  • July 7, 2010 |

    Less than a third of female lawyers now aiming for partnership

    Little over a third of lawyers now aspire to join the partnership at their firm, as new research suggests that the increasingly slim chance of making partner is hitting its motivational power. Legal Week Intelligence's 2010 Employee Satisfaction Report found that only 38% of associates now regard making partner at their own firm as their key career aim. The number represents a significant decrease on previous figures of 45% in 2009 and 50% in 2008.

    1 minute read