Legal Week

June 12, 2009 | International Edition

Allen & Overy (A&O) has secured enough drugs to treat its entire staff for swine flu, it has emerged, as the World Health Authority (WHO) this week officially classified the outbreak as a pandemic. A&O ordered the stocks of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu - the primary means to treat the new strain of flu - several years ago as part of its business continuity planning as the drug has broad applications for viral infections. A&O has enough of the drug to treat its entire staff and is holding the drugs locally across its global network through third-party medical providers, with the exception of jurisdictions where local regulations restrict such a policy.

By Legal Week

3 minute read

June 12, 2009 | International Edition

BT Global Services general counsel and commercial director Tim Cowen is stepping down after 18 years at the company. Cowen, a former regulatory lawyer at Lovells, joined BT Ignite as head of legal in 1991. Ten years later he became general counsel of successor organisation BT Global Services and subsequently took on the role of commercial director.

By Legal Week

2 minute read

June 12, 2009 | International Edition

The Northern Rock shareholders dispute has entered its final day of appeal, with Jonathan Sumption QC replacing Lord Grabiner QC for the Government throughout the appeal process. The three-day trial, which kicked off earlier this week (10 June) in the Court of Appeal, sees more than 150,000 private shareholders appealing a February decision which scuppered the shareholders' attempts to secure improved compensation following the nationalisation of the lender.

By Legal Week

2 minute read

June 12, 2009 | International Edition

A trio of transatlantic firms have landed plum roles on the $13.5bn (£8.2bn) sale of Barclays' global investment arm to US money manager BlackRock. Blackrock is purchasing Barclays Global Investors - which includes asset management business iShares - for $6.6bn (£4bn) in cash and the remainder in stock.

By Legal Week

2 minute read

June 12, 2009 | International Edition

Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom has recruited Hong Kong corporate partner Julie Gao from Latham & Watkins. Gao, who joined Latham straight out of law school in 1998 and was promoted to partner in 2006, was regarded as an up-and-comer in Latham's Asia practice, focusing on M&A and capital markets transactions.

By Legal Week

2 minute read

June 12, 2009 | International Edition

Allen & Overy (A&O) has made its first lateral hires since its restructuring, with two new partners joining the firm. The magic circle firm has bolstered its intellectual property (IP) practice with the addition of Neville Cordell, who joins from DLA Piper, and Huw Evans, who joins from Wragge & Co. The duo will focus on contentious IP matters across a variety of industries, including life sciences, financial services, information and media, and technology.

By Legal Week

2 minute read

June 11, 2009 | International Edition

As regular readers of legalweek.com will have noticed, we've been gradually building up a group of regular lawyer contributors. For the past few months prospective barrister Ekaterina Zelenova has been writing for us about the travails of finding a pupillage - and provoking plenty of comments from readers in the process - while more recently Kate Karakuli, a senior associate at a City firm, has been providing insider instalments on the quest for partnership.

By Legal Week

2 minute read

June 11, 2009 | International Edition

"I am at the start of my training contract and for personal reasons, I am considering making a move to Scotland from a large English regional firm on qualification. My question is whether there is any great likelihood of being taken on by a Scottish firm with no Scottish law experience, and failing that, what would be the alternatives for practising north of the border? In addition, are there any particular areas of law which pose no problems in making the switch from English to Scottish law?"

By Legal Week

1 minute read

June 11, 2009 | International Edition

Pinsent Masons has announced a package of cost-cutting measures in an effort to avert widespread job cuts at the firm. Pinsents is rolling out a number of measures, including sabbaticals and part-time working, which will be encouraged across the firm following a successful pilot project. The UK top 20 firm confirmed that a number of jobs - including fee earners and support staff - will come under threat, but stressed these would be kept at a minimum.

By Legal Week

2 minute read

June 11, 2009 | International Edition

Most legal jokes aren't much help in understanding commercial lawyers, since the stereotypical ambulance-chaser dominates humour about the profession. So if lawyers want to understand their image in the wider business community they could do well to look at jokes usually reserved for accountants and economists (there are quite a lot).

By Legal Week

3 minute read