Legal Week

August 11, 2009 | International Edition

City heavyweights Macfarlanes and Lovells have scored advisory roles on ITV's sell-off of social networking site Friends Reunited for just £25m. Macfarlanes corporate partner Nicola Richards has advised the acquirer, online technology and publishing business brightsolid, and its Dundee-based owner DC Thomson, which is one of Scotland's biggest privately-owned media and publishing groups.

By Legal Week

2 minute read

August 11, 2009 | International Edition

Mishcon de Reya has completed its second redundancy consultation with 16 people losing their jobs. The consultation, which concluded in July, has seen eight support staff lose their jobs alongside eight fee earners in the firm's corporate and real estate groups. No salaried partners were affected by the redundancies.

By Legal Week

2 minute read

August 11, 2009 | International Edition

Former UBS general counsel David Aufhauser, who resigned last year following allegations of involvement in the bank's alleged sale of auction-rate securities, has rejoined his former firm Williams & Connolly. Aufhauser - a former managing director of the Swiss bank and general counsel of the US Department of the Treasury - last October settled charges with New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo that he engaged in insider trading at UBS, agreeing to pay $6.5m (£3.9m).

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2 minute read

August 11, 2009 | International Edition

Herbert Smith is the latest firm to land a role advising on the recommended £1.86bn takeover of Friends Provident by Resolution. The top 10 City firm is advising Resolution's banks, including Credit Suisse and Lazard, on the recommended acquisition, which was announced today (11 August).

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2 minute read

August 11, 2009 | International Edition

A bankruptcy court report has alleged that Heller Ehrman last year distributed $9m (£5.5m) in profits that the now-defunct firm did not have. According to the interim status report, in early 2008, someone at Heller instructed its accounting department to distribute the $9m and then cover it up.

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2 minute read

August 11, 2009 | International Edition

NautaDutilh has recruited an Allen & Overy (A&O) partner in Brussels, with restructuring and insolvency litigation partner Sophie Jacmain set to join the Benelux firm. Jacmain left A&O's Brussels office earlier this month, where she headed a restructuring group within the litigation department. She was promoted to partner at A&O in 2008. She joins Nauta as an associate partner, a rank the firm introduced last year as an alternative to salaried partner.

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2 minute read

August 11, 2009 | International Edition

Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker has brought in a high-profile patent litigation team from Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom in the US. The firm has recruited a trio of partners from Skadden including Jeff Randall, who leads the US firm's patent litigation teams in Palo Alto, Washington DC and Boston.

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2 minute read

August 11, 2009 | International Edition

General Electric subsidiary GE Capital has appointed a new general counsel with the hire of Linklaters London banking partner Neil Harnby. Harnby, who will be based in London, will oversee GE Capital's Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) legal operations.

By Legal Week

2 minute read

August 11, 2009 | International Edition

Jeremy Barton, partner and general counsel of The Boston Consulting Group, introduces the Legal Week Corporate Counsel Forum Europe 2009, set to take place at the Four Seasons Hampshire on 15-16 September 2009.

By Legal Week

1 minute read

August 11, 2009 | International Edition

I have to admit the news that One Essex Court is to pay its pupils an award of £60,000 arouses a trace of envy in me – perhaps not entirely unrelated to the fact that my pupillage award was £10,000, and that now as a third six pupil somehow I'm earning even less than that.

By Legal Week

3 minute read