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  • December 21, 2010 |

    Quinn Emanuel raises bar for associate bonuses with 2010 rates

    Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan associates could take home up to $82,500 (£53,300) in bonus payouts after the US firm confirmed its 2010 associate bonuses. Bonuses will range from $8,438 (£5,449) for associates who joined in 2009 and worked between 2,000 and 2,099 hours, through to $82,500 (£53,256) for the most senior associates (class of 2003) working at least 3,000 hours during 2010.

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  • December 20, 2010 |

    Slaughters partner to leave firm for GC role at Treasury agency

    Slaughter and May partner Lucy Wylde is set to formally take up a position as general counsel of HM Treasury arm the Asset Protection Agency (APA). Wylde will take up the post at the start of the new financial year on 1 May, having been on secondment to the Treasury since March 2009, serving as the agency's GC since its launch in December that year.

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  • December 14, 2010 |

    Slaughters and CC take lead roles on GE's £800m Wellstream takeover

    Slaughter and May and Clifford Chance (CC) have won lead roles on General Electric's £800m takeover of UK oil and gas services company Wellstream, reports The Am Law Daily. GE's takeover of the Newcastle-based company, which designs pipes used in undersea oil and gas drilling, is expected to close in the first quarter of 2011.

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  • December 9, 2010 |

    Bank rescue work sends Govt legal spend surging 400% to £45m

    Government legal spend under the legal services framework has quadrupled over the last three years, according to figures obtained by Legal Week through a freedom of information request. Figures released by Office of Government Commerce agency Buying Solutions show legal spend stood at £44.8m for the 2009-10 financial year, compared with £11.3m in pre-recession 2007-08. The figures show expenditure in the last financial year was only marginally lower than the previous two years combined, which stood at £47.9m including 2008-09 legal fees of £36.6m.

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  • December 7, 2010 |

    Banking, Finance or Restructuring Team of the Year

    Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer secures the Banking, Finance or Restructuring Team of the Year Award for the crucial role it played helping to secure the future of Spanish packaging giant La Seda de Barcelona. The judges were impressed by the evidence of client satisfaction, technical proficiency and innovation. A team of more than 30 lawyers from the restructuring, corporate, banking and dispute resolution teams, led by restructuring partner Richard Tett, advised on the restructuring of debt worth €1bn (£850m) by means of an English scheme of arrangement. It was the first time an English scheme had been used by a Spanish company and is being regarded as a potential template for future restructurings of non-English companies with English law debt.

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  • December 6, 2010 |

    A&O wins role to act for Treasury on £3.2bn Ireland bailout loan

    Allen & Overy (A&O) has won a mandate to advise the Treasury on the UK's £3.2bn bilateral loan agreement with Ireland. The appointment sees A&O's global banking chairman Michael Duncan and special global counsel Philip Wood take the lead role for the firm in relation to the UK's part of the Irish bailout.

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  • December 1, 2010 |

    SNR Denton and Eversheds get client vote on cost and billing practices

    SNR Denton has emerged as the highest ranked top 20 UK law firm by clients for cost and billing practices, according to Legal Week research. The merged firm was closely followed by Eversheds, Simmons & Simmons and CMS Cameron McKenna, according to Legal Week Intelligence's seventh annual Client Satisfaction Report, which is based on responses from 1,265 senior in-house lawyers.

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  • November 26, 2010 |

    Camerons among trio appointed as Royal Mail cuts back legal panel

    Royal Mail has cut back its UK legal panel from eight firms to three, with CMS Cameron McKenna, Beachcroft and Bond Pearce winning coveted places on the roster. The trio will formally start their three-year terms on 1 December, with the option of extending it for one year. The panel covers company & commercial, IT, intellectual property, pensions, dispute resolution and the higher value end of property and employment work for both Royal Mail and the Post Office.

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  • November 26, 2010 |

    Arks, opportunity costs and the unambiguous evil/virtue of verein mergers

    I had meant to take on something a bit less dry today, but here I am again on the scintillating subject of law firm mergers structured with Swiss vereins, or, if you strip away the jargon, unions that maintain separate profit pools. Thank you, Norton Rose. The first observation to make regarding the debate on the City firm's tie-up with Canada's Ogilvy Renault and South Africa's Deneys Reitz is how polarised the arguments are on both sides. Indeed, the same points have been deployed with the rash of other deals that have fallen short of full financial integration.

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  • November 24, 2010 |

    Slaughters, Simmons and Bird & Bird top-rated by clients in new research

    Slaughter and May, Simmons & Simmons and Bird & Bird have emerged as the City's top-performing law firms based on client feedback, as part of a major research project from Legal Week. The trio were the top-rated international firms according to Legal Week Intelligence's seventh annual Client Satisfaction Report, which is based on responses from 1,265 senior in-house lawyers and finance directors. The flagship project from Legal Week's independent research arm is its most comprehensive client survey to date and includes rankings of 71 UK and US firms based on responses from 903 companies operating in the UK. The report covers 71% of the FTSE 100.

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