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  • March 28, 2007 |

    US giants dominate M&A rankings as European market falls from 2006 high

    A raft of US firms have topped the global M&A tables for the first quarter of 2007. New York firms Sullivan & Cromwell and Davis Polk & Wardwell led the field of advisers by total value of transactions over the three-month period, while Latham & Watkins and Jones Day finished top of the volume rankings.

    1 minute read

  • March 28, 2007 |

    Middle East and India: Highway to a new world

    According to a taxi driver in Dubai, the only old thing left in the emirate is the sea. It is a common observation, but an outsider could not hope for a more telling insight into the degree of commercial activity in the region. Not surprisingly, that expansion has been mirrored in the legal sector where foreign law firms that have opened up offices in the past three years now significantly outnumber the old hands.

    1 minute read

  • March 28, 2007 |

    Commentary: The City should vote Brown (but maybe not the country)

    Some tax lawyers, perhaps feeling a twinge of sympathy for a time when the UK used to have manufacturing clients, are in the knocking camp but, by most City lawyers' yardsticks, you would have to call Gordon Brown's last Budget a result.

    1 minute read

  • March 28, 2007 |

    Deals: Finance 29/03/2007

    - Osborne Clarke (OC) has advised support services company MITIE on its arrangement of a £150m revolving credit facility with a club of banks including Barclays, Lloyds TSB, Royal Bank of Scotland and co-ordinated by HSBC. Banking partner Omar Al-Nuaimi and associate Lucy Walker led the team at OC. Allen & Overy finance partner Simon Roberts and associate Nayna Ahmed advised the banks.

    1 minute read

  • March 28, 2007 |

    Dutch duo win roles on Barclays/ABN bid

    Two of the Netherlands' leading independents are the latest firms to win roles on the £80bn merger talks between Barclays and ABN Amro. Herbert Smith's Benelux ally Stibbe is advising ABN's supervisory board while long-term adviser NautaDutilh is leading for ABN alongside Allen & Overy (A&O). Nauta corporate partner Hein Hooghoudt is leading the team for ABN.

    1 minute read

  • March 28, 2007 |

    View from here: The two faces of law

    In January 1986 Lawrence Mulloy, NASA's rocket project manager, convinced himself - in the face of unanimous engineering advice to the contrary - that cold weather would not affect the rubber seals on the booster rockets of the Challenger Space Shuttle. The ensuing disaster is one of the best-known examples of the dangers of self-deception, or 'doublethink' as George Orwell memorably termed it in his novel 1984. The ability Mulloy demonstrated - to blind ourselves to an unwelcome reality - is generally thought to be a capacity we evolved in ancient times to survive.

    1 minute read

  • March 28, 2007 |

    Through the looking glass with leveraged finance

    Those searching for a better example of the current through-the-looking-glass mood of the European leveraged finance market won’t find a better example…

    1 minute read

  • March 28, 2007 |

    Links' LBO team rides trend with dual JP Morgan mandate

    Linklaters' acquisition finance team has scored a high-profile mandate after advising on two so-called 'covenant-lite' financings for JP Morgan. The firm, fielding a team under finance partner Gideon Moore, advised JP Morgan as arranger and debt provider for Apax on its acquisition of a 49.9% stake in Trader Media Investments from the Guardian Media Group for £1.35bn.

    1 minute read

  • March 26, 2007 |

    Manhattan elite dominate Q1 deal rankings

    Elite New York firms Sullivan & Cromwell and Davis Polk & Wardwell have stormed to the top of preliminary global M&A tables for the first quarter of 2007. Sullivan topped the table, acting on 33 deals worth a combined $162.9bn (£83bn), while Manhattan rival Davis Polk acted on 28 deals worth $149.4bn (£76.2bn), according to figures from Mergermarket.

    1 minute read

  • March 23, 2007 |

    GE drops e-bidding for US adviser overhaul

    General Electric (GE) has completed an overhaul of its US panel of advisers, ditching 44 firms and adding 12 new names to the roster. The international conglomerate, which has one of the largest in-house legal departments in the world, has axed 15 litigation firms and 13 US regional firms - including Armstrong Teasdale and Fox Rothschild - from its from its roster, which handles all of GE's legal work in the US.

    1 minute read