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  • October 14, 2009 |

    A&O takes top role on €1bn leveraged finance deal

    Allen & Overy (A&O) has advised on the €1.025bn (£955m) financing of the acquisition of a majority stake in Italian natural gas distributor Enel Rete Gas (ERG). The magic circle firm drafted in a team from its City headquarters to advise a consortium of 11 banks financing the deal, led by longstanding clients JP Morgan and Banca IMI. London projects partner Conrad Andersen took the lead for A&O, with leveraged finance chief Tim Polglase assisting.

    1 minute read

  • October 6, 2009 |

    Shearman takes lead role for SocGen on €4.8bn cash call

    Shearman & Sterling has advised Societe Generale on a €4.8bn (£4.4bn) cash call that will allow the bank to repay state aid it received from the French Government during the credit crunch. The US firm fielded a team led out of Paris by corporate partner Herve Letreguilly and capital markets partner Robert Treuhold.

    1 minute read

  • October 6, 2009 |

    Virtual lawyers or high quality temps?

    To date, clients' efforts to cut legal spend have largely focused on securing discounts on headline charge-out from advisers while incrementally weaning law firms off flat hourly billing. Apart from Rio Tinto's headline-grabbing deal with outsourcing provider CPA Global - which sees the mining giant send certain tasks that would previously have gone to its panel firms to 10 CPA lawyers in India - there has not been much radical re-evaluation of the way legal services are delivered.

    1 minute read

  • October 6, 2009 |

    Body of evidence

    There is a popular aphorism that a dyers hand is always stained by the elements he works with. Likewise, it seems that a solicitor's reputation for probity can easily be tainted by basic flaws in the handling of electronic disclosure. The recurring theme in most cases where solicitors have given inadequate e-disclosure is that the defaulting parties prepared poorly and made nominal efforts to agree e-disclosure parameters with the opposition. This unilateral approach contravenes the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) and has been rejected by the courts. The recent spate of rulings on e-disclosure failures has been covered widely by various interest groups, each promoting parochial solutions. What is missing is a recursive framework for early discussions as required by the CPR.

    1 minute read

  • October 1, 2009 |

    Stars at the Bar

    Without the well-honed PR teams of many a law firm and legally unable to promote themselves, barristers rely to a great extent on the recommendations of peers and instructing solicitors for reputation and referral. Unlike the majority of their solicitor counterparts, many commercial barristers will turn their hand to several sectors of the law. And not only do they need to be team players, working closely with law firm partners, they also need to be savvy with strong client skills.

    1 minute read

  • September 30, 2009 |

    Reed Smith hires third London partner in a month

    Reed Smith has made its third lateral partner hire in London in a month, bringing in litigator Robert Falkner from Morgan Lewis & Bockius. Falkner joins the US firm's European and Middle East dispute resolution practice today (1 October), bringing with him a practice focused on financial services. He has experience representing clients including investment banks, broker dealers and fund managers.

    1 minute read

  • September 30, 2009 |

    Quartet of firms lead on second-largest IPO of the year so far

    Four international firms have landed roles on Metallurgical Corporation of China's (MCC's) initial public offering (IPO) - the second-largest listing of the year so far. The $5.2bn (£3.2bn) raised from the sale of shares on the Shanghai and Hong Kong exchanges makes MCC the second-largest IPO this year after the $7.4bn (£4.6bn) raised by China State Construction Engineering Corporation in July.

    1 minute read

  • September 25, 2009 |

    Morgan Lewis names new London chief as firm targets City growth

    Morgan Lewis has appointed Charles Lubar as head of its London office, replacing Bob Goldspink, who is set to retire at the end of this month. Lubar, who was part of the team that founded the firm's London office and managed it until the mid-1990s, will take up the role on 1 October. He has been a partner at Morgan Lewis for almost 30 years and also heads up the firm's London tax practice.

    1 minute read

  • September 23, 2009 |

    Renewable energy: Critical mass

    "The nuclear industry was for many years not very glamorous in this country, to say the least," recalls Amec Nuclear legal director Kevin Smith. "Now, though, it has suddenly become fashionable," he continues, "with law firms suddenly claiming they have got a nuclear law department". The shift in attitude began in 2003, counter-intuitively with the establishment of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), which subsequently opened up the decommissioning of various ageing nuclear plants, including Sellafield, to private companies. Around this time the Government's commitment to reduce its carbon emission levels, agreed under the Kyoto Protocol, came into force.

    1 minute read

  • September 23, 2009 |

    Is Whitehall wilting in the climate change heat?

    Against the background of one of Europe's most liberalised energy markets and a renewable generation subsidy scheme designed to be driven by market forces, there are signs that the Government is struggling to make the model fit with its challenging low carbon targets. Is Whitehall losing faith in the power of free markets to deliver the goods when it comes to climate change?

    1 minute read