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  • January 22, 2009 |

    Imperial Tobacco restructures UK legal team

    Imperial Tobacco has restructured its core UK legal team following its takeover of Spanish tobacco rival Altadis.The merged company has around 35-40 lawyers, including 10 in the legal team's Bristol headquarters. The overhaul will see the Bristol lawyers organised across four legal disciplines - company/commercial, intellectual property (IP), litigation and regulatory - rather than by geography. Lawyers within the wider group will then report into the relevant UK discipline head.

    1 minute read

  • January 22, 2009 |

    Lovells powers up with Herbert Smith hire to build Tokyo energy practice

    Lovells is launching an energy practice in Tokyo with the hire of a lawyer from Herbert Smith's Japanese arm. Anthony Raven, who had spent the last year on secondment to Mitsubishi, joined Lovells as a partner yesterday (21 January) from top 10 rival Herbert Smith, where he was a senior associate. His hire comes after Lovells last year hired its first dedicated energy partner in Singapore with the addition of White & Case partner Brad Roach in July.

    1 minute read

  • January 22, 2009 |

    Asian newcomers size up an uncertain market

    The jet lag flying from New York to Hong Kong is bad enough for a solo traveller. For a family with two young children in tow, it is an absolute killer."We slept through the night last night," says Yash Rana, sitting in his office in the IM Pei-designed Bank of China Tower less than a week after the fateful flight. "That was a treat."Rana has moved his family halfway around the world so he can take charge of Goodwin Procter's new Hong Kong office, which opened in November to become the Boston-based law firm's first overseas location.

    1 minute read

  • January 15, 2009 |

    Rival City firms decline repeat of CC job cuts

    The bulk of the City's top 10 law firms have stated that they will not be following Clifford Chance's (CC's) lead with formal redundancies in London in the immediate future. Magic circle firm Linklaters was the only firm that refused to comment, with all of the remaining firms saying they had no lawyer job cuts in the pipeline. Allen & Overy (A&O), the firm regarded by many as the most likely to make cuts after CC as a result of its large finance practice, said it had no imminent plans. The firm said in a statement: "Like any business we cannot rule out the possibility of having to make targeted redundancies in particular practice groups or offices if there is a sustained downturn or if there are exceptional business reasons."

    1 minute read

  • January 14, 2009 |

    Dealmaker: Helen Burton

    Ashurst finance partner Helen Burton on role models, almost marrying colleagues and the honour of being asked to 'action' Dealmaker

    1 minute read

  • January 14, 2009 |

    Herbert Smith joins insolvency rush with oil company mandate

    Herbert Smith has become the latest firm to benefit from the run of UK restructuring and insolvency mandates, winning a role on the collapse of London and Toronto-listed Oilexco. Finance head Jason Fox and restructuring partner Kevin Pullen are leading a five-partner team advising administrator Ernst & Young on the collapse, which sees Oilexco become the oil industry's first casualty of the crunch. McCarthy Tetrault is advising Oilexco, with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer advising the banks involved in the deal. The administration is the latest in a stream of instructions for City firms in recent weeks, as well-known names ranging from Waterford Wedgwood to Zavvi have gone under.

    1 minute read

  • January 14, 2009 |

    Confidence falls to new low as outlook darkens

    Business confidence has plunged to a new low as law firms face up to a grim outlook for 2009 with three out of four partners expecting revenue to fall or remain static among the UK top 50.The latest quarterly Legal Week Business Confidence survey found that only 5% of respondents believe revenue at their firm will rise by double digits over the next 12 months. The result, a sharp drop on 2007 when two-thirds of partners were regularly predicting 10%-plus growth, is the fifth quarter in a row in which projected fee growth has dropped in the survey.However, 23% still expect to see growth of 0%-5% and a further 17% are expecting increases of 5%-10% at their own firms. The poll of 120 partner respondents found that 25% believe that revenue at their firm will remain static over 2009 and more than a quarter (26%) expect to see revenue fall.

    1 minute read

  • January 14, 2009 |

    Man Group considers legal action in $50bn Madoff case

    Hedge fund Man Group is set to take legal action over its exposure to the high-profile $50bn (£33.9bn) Madoff fraud case. The British-based fund is considering a number of options in a bid to reduce its exposure with legal action being discussed. Man Group is exposed to the Madoff case through its institutional fund of funds business, RMF, which had around $360m (£246m) in funds directly or indirectly sub-advised by Madoff.

    1 minute read

  • January 13, 2009 |

    Ashurst wins lead on latest retail insolvency

    Ashurst has landed the lead role on the administration of furniture retailer Land of Leather. The Kent-based company appointed Deloitte as its administrators yesterday (12 January) after it was unable to secure working capital due to the difficult trading conditions.Corporate partner Giles Boothman is leading the Ashurst team advising Deloitte and The Land of Leather.

    1 minute read

  • January 8, 2009 |

    Ashurst adds Evans to top-level management team

    Ashurst has elected corporate partner David Evans to its management board - effectively replacing Geoffrey Green who has stepped down as senior partner. Ashurst partners voted for Evans to take a seat on the board, with Charlie Geffen moving to the senior partner role and Green relocating to Hong Kong to launch the firm's branch there later this year.Evans, who specialises in investment funds, has been a partner at Ashurst since 1995 and was appointed head of a dedicated real estate funds practice in 2006.

    1 minute read