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  • June 16, 2010 |

    Watson Farley adds partner to Munich base with Weil Gotshal corporate hire

    Watson Farley & Williams boosted its Munich office with the hire of a Weil Gotshal & Manges' corporate and M&A lawyer. Dirk Janssen, who will join the Watson Farley partnership on 1 July, spent just seven months at Weil Gotshal as a senior associate after a six-year spell at Ashurst.

    1 minute read

  • June 9, 2010 |

    A&O rebuilds German employment team with Taylor Wessing partner

    Allen & Overy (A&O) has moved to rebuild its Duesseldorf employment practice with the hire of a partner from Taylor Wessing. Tobias Neufeld, who has spent just one year at Taylor Wessing after joining as a partner in June 2009, is also the former head of Ashurst's employment team in Munich, where he was a senior associate.

    1 minute read

  • June 9, 2010 |

    Kirkland swoops once more - and this time it's personal

    Kirkland & Ellis moves to dramatically bolster its London arm, two private equity partners quit a prestigious City practice, seven-figure sums are bandied around and feathers are well and truly ruffled... No, this isn't a flashback to Kirkland's much-hyped recruitment of Linklaters duo Graham White and Raymond McKeeve at the height of the credit boom in 2006. But you don't have to look too hard to see the similarities in the recruitment this month of Gavin Gordon and David Arnold, two well-regarded young partners in Ashurst's corporate practice.

    1 minute read

  • June 9, 2010 |

    Lloyds invites firms to pitch for first post-merger panel

    Lloyds Banking Group has embarked upon a full UK panel review, creating a combined roster for Lloyds TSB and HBOS for the first time. The banking giant has invited a large number of UK law firms to pitch for the review, with a view to creating a new panel with firms appointed along practice lines.

    1 minute read

  • June 8, 2010 |

    Freshfields and Ashurst take lead roles on £864m ABB bid for Chloride

    Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Ashurst have taken lead roles on engineering giant ABB's £864m bid for FTSE 250 power company Chloride Group. Freshfields corporate partners Barry O'Brien and Piers Prichard Jones are leading the firm's team advising ABB on the offer, which will potentially set off a bidding war with US manufacturing company Emerson Electric, whose 275p per share offer was rejected two weeks ago.

    1 minute read

  • June 1, 2010 |

    Ashurst private equity partner duo set to join Kirkland in the City

    Kirkland & Ellis has hired highly-rated private equity partners Gavin Gordon and David Arnold from Ashurst, Legal Week can reveal. The duo are set to join Kirkland's City office, marking the US firm's first major investment in London since 2008. It is understood that Kirkland has offered seven-figure pay deals to the pair, who are expected to be tied into a six-month notice period at Ashurst.

    1 minute read

  • June 1, 2010 |

    Wages of spin - the rise of salaried partners

    When it comes to employment prospects at the UK's leading law firms, the global recession has been the bloodiest period in recent memory. There is, however, one category of senior lawyer whose ranks have swelled dramatically - that of the salaried partner. Legal Week research reveals that collectively the top 30 UK law firms added 435 lawyers to their non-equity partner headcount between 2007 and 2009. Far from reflecting a profession in rude health, however, this phenomenon is a direct result of the fight by leading law firms to manage their way through the recession.

    1 minute read

  • June 1, 2010 |

    Three-year decline in equity ranks boosts partner profits by £26k

    Rising numbers of salaried partners at the UK's leading law firms have inflated partner profits by an average of £26,000 across the top 30, according to Legal Week research. Alongside contracting equity ranks, profits per equity partner (PEP) at the UK top 30 firms would have stood at an average of £26,000 less in 2009 if the proportion of salaried partners had remained at 2007 levels.

    1 minute read

  • May 26, 2010 |

    Ashurst and A&O advise on RBS sale of European factoring businesses

    Ashurst and Allen & Overy (A&O) have taken roles on Royal Bank of Scotland's (RBS) European disposal programme, as the bank sold its factoring businesses in both France and Germany. In France, the issue share capital of RBS Factor has been sold to financial services company GE Capital, while a similar deal completed at the end of March saw the General Electric subsidiary buy out RBS' German business, RBS Factoring.

    1 minute read

  • May 19, 2010 |

    Citigroup names 'golden nine' line-up of UK firms in two-tier EMEA panel

    Citigroup has overhauled its external legal arrangements, creating two new panels of preferred law firms. The banking giant has unveiled new panels of advisers in the Europe, Middle East and Asia (EMEA) region and the US, formalising its previous roster of law firms.

    1 minute read