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International Edition

Halliwells' £4m rent dispute drags on after mediation impasse

Halliwells' ex-partners are set for continued talks over the firm's £4m outstanding rent liabilities after failing to reach an agreement during the first round of mediation. A second meeting has been scheduled after the defunct firm's former partners failed to reach a compromise with fellow ex-partner Paul Thomas over the rent obligations. Thomas, a personal guarantor for Halliwells' former Manchester offices at St James's Court, is attempting to spread the liability for rent guaranteed on the premises until 2013.
2 minute read

International Edition

Slaughters and US law duo advise on Liverpool takeover boardroom battle

A raft of law firms are advising on the potential sale of Liverpool Football Club to Boston Red Sox owners New England Sport Ventures (NESV), amid a boardroom wrangle at the club. Slaughter and May, Weil Gotshal & Manges and Shearman & Sterling are advising the Liverpool board, US owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett and NESV respectively on the proposed takeover.
3 minute read

International Edition

Commercial and chancery Bar: Re-setting the bar

"It's quite fashionable at the Bar to say: 'The Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) - no-one cares about that. It's rubbish, isn't it? We don't care what grade you get.' It is certainly not held with much respect, or anything like the same importance that academic degrees have. "Ours is one of the highest pass rates in the world for a Bar course. In a lot of places, only 30% of people pass." This damning indictment from Adam Kramer, pupillage secretary at 3 Verulam Buildings and author of Bewigged and Bewildered: A Guide to Becoming a Barrister in England and Wales, echoes the sentiments of many practitioners about the new BPTC.
9 minute read

International Edition

Chancery and commercial Bar: Stars at the Bar

The future of the Bar always sparks a fiery debate, and never more so than now, with the Legal Services Act (LSA) opening up new opportunities set to reshape the future of the legal profession. The upcoming changes have split lawyers into two camps: there are those who see it as a dying profession, with barristers unable and unwilling to change, and others who see the Bar as a vital part of our legal system going forward, which is opening up to modern practices.
13 minute read

International Edition

Quinn Emanuel seals key insolvency court win

US litigation boutique Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan has won a UK court victory that could potentially reshape the traditional creditor hierarchy in insolvency proceedings. The case concerned a challenge on behalf of junior creditors HHY Luxembourg and AMP Capital Investors against a proposal made during the restructuring of European Directories - a data and online search business - that would have wiped out the creditors' investment in the company.
2 minute read

International Edition

Veil Jourde acts for SocGen as rogue trader Kerviel receives jail term

France's Veil Jourde has successfully defended Societe Generale in the high-profile €50bn (£44bn) fraud case involving rogue trader Jerome Kerviel. Founding partner Jean Veil advised SocGen on its successful recovery of the €4.9bn (£4.3bn) the bank claimed it had lost as a result of Kerviel's actions.
2 minute read

International Edition

New research shows 16% rise in court appearances by FTSE 100 companies

The number of court appearances by FTSE 100 companies has jumped by 16% over the last year, according to new research. During the year to 30 June 2010 there were 179 cases involving FTSE 100 companies across the Court of Appeal, Queen's Bench and Chancery Division, compared to 154 in the previous year. The study, conducted by legal information provider Sweet & Maxwell, showed financial services companies were involved in over half (58%) of High Court cases involving the FTSE 100, despite such companies accounting for just 18% of the share index.
2 minute read

International Edition

Career Clinic: Corporate law's a turn-off - but would qualifying elsewhere hurt my CV?

"I'm a trainee at one of the top City firms and am facing a dilemma about where to qualify. The basic problem is that I don't want to close off future career options, such as moving into a business-facing role in a large corporate, but I can't stand transactional law. I found the hours in corporate to be incredibly long (typically 55-65 hours a week) and have seen that the work can be unbelievably tedious (even at partner level) but appreciate that qualifying into such an area would provide a very good business background - learning about transaction timetables, business concepts, reading accounts, etc.
1 minute read

International Edition

Litigation and dispute resolution: Russian to London

In recent years, it seems that alongside having the yacht and buying a Mayfair property, the latest must-do activity for billionaire Russians and their businesses has been to participate in complex legal disputes in London through either international arbitration or litigation in the Royal Courts of Justice. This raises the question of whether this is a temporary fad or part of a long-term trend. There is no doubt that the London legal landscape, including both the High Court and London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), has always been popular for the resolution of disputes involving parties and/or interests from abroad and, in particular, from the CIS states, including Russia. Research into figures from both courts appear to show a positive trend in terms of an increase in Russian-related disputes over time.
9 minute read

International Edition

Litigation and dispute resolution: The new, new thing

Richard Fields likes antitrust cases; so far he likes them to the tune of $79m (£50m). Since late 2007, when he helped establish and float Juridica Capital Management on AIM, London Stock Exchange's junior market - raising $180m (£115m) in the process - Fields has been combing the US litigation market for commercial suits for his fund to invest in. Over the last three years, New York-based Juridica has sunk almost half of that money into five antitrust cases. Ferreting out the right antitrust case - that is, one in which liability has already been admitted - is as close to a sure thing as you can get in litigation financing, he boasts. The risk on liability "is typically very low [in these cases], especially in the United States, where there have been criminal convictions or plea agreements with the US Department of Justice," adds Fields, a former Dickstein Shapiro partner.
11 minute read

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