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International Edition

3i names GE's Dunn as new general counsel

Private equity giant 3i has appointed General Electric (GE) senior managing director Kevin Dunn as its new general counsel, replacing outgoing incumbent Tony Brierley, who is to retire. Brierley, the veteran general counsel who has been at 3i for 24 years after joining the in-house legal team in 1983, steps down from his role today (1 November).
2 minute read

International Edition

Legal networking site triples users as top firms sign up to share advice

Legal networking website Legal OnRamp has trebled its users since the summer, with its membership jumping from around 500 to more than 1,600 in three months - 100 of which are summer placement students at US firm Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe.
2 minute read

International Edition

Cadbury Schweppes demerger relocates lawyers in team split

Confectionary giant Cadbury Schweppes has finalised the make-up of its legal team after confirming that it will be splitting with its drinks arm. Cadbury legal chief Hank Udow said that in the wake of the demerger, which was confirmed on 10 October, the company's 70-lawyer legal team will be split in two. Around 50 lawyers will stay at Cadbury and around 20 will join the drinks business, Americas Beverages.
2 minute read

International Edition

HP hires four for in-house boost

Tech giant Hewlett Packard's (HP's) outsourcing arm, HP Services, has ramped up its UK in-house capacity with the hire of four new lawyers. Ex-Fujitsu Services outsourcing specialist Andrew Howe has joined HP Services and will be joined by three other lawyers by the end of the year. The hires follow the appointment of Joyce Norcini as general counsel for Europe, the Middle East and Africa in April this year to replace the outgoing Eric Herkens.
1 minute read

International Edition

Bunzl in-houser joins London firm as partner

An in-house lawyer at outsourcing company Bunzl has left to join London law firm Winckworth Sherwood as a partner in its commercial team. Neil Morgan specialises in UK and international acquisitions and disposals, commercial contracts and risk assessment. Before joining Bunzl, Morgan spent six years with Allen & Overy. Winckworth's head of commercial, Richard Tinham, said Morgan's experience would help the firm understand its clients.
1 minute read

International Edition

Corporate Counsel: The success scale

The task of ranking law firms, for years the preserve of hefty legal directories, now appears to be a challenge that a handful of major clients are ready to take on. In this case, corporate counsel who are under pressure to show they are getting value from their legal spending are searching for ways to monitor, codify and, perhaps even share information on the performance of external counsel. This is not, in itself, new. Stumbling attempts to rank advisers began to emerge in the late 1990s with the introduction of panels and commoditisation of some areas of legal services. However, such attempts were generally stuttering and unsuccessful.
6 minute read

International Edition

Companies under backdating spotlight shell out massive legal fees for independent investigations

Perhaps no corporate scandal of recent years has created such wide-ranging troubles as the stock option backdating mess. Companies have spent untold millions on legal fees for independent investigations, government negotiations and shareholder and derivative suits. And even if the companies clean house, the disgraced executives can - and do - insist that their former employers keep paying their high-priced lawyers, thanks to indemnification contracts that are a standard perk in executive suites. In the case of Brocade Communications Systems, which cut ties with its convicted former chief executive, Gregory Reyes, legal fees could eventually reach $100m (£48.7m).
3 minute read

International Edition

Adrian Wood: Akzo ruling stifles competition

The long-awaited ruling by the Court of First Instance (CFI) in Akzo Nobel has for the moment removed all hope that in-house lawyers could invoke the same rights of legal professional privilege (LPP) for European Commission (EC) law purposes that are enjoyed by independent external lawyers. The fact that the CFI reached a pragmatic rather than a principled decision in a case that cried out for a principled analysis must make the disappointment experienced by in-house lawyers about their differential treatment even more acute, despite the reality of the last 25 years. The judgment warrants many criticisms but two stand out above the rest. Firstly, the ruling assumes incorrectly that in-house lawyers enjoy the luxury of delaying pressurised internal requests for high-level compliance assessments in order to access external legal advice; and secondly, there is no concrete evidence presented in the judgment suggesting that in-house lawyers observe rules of ethics that are so different to those applicable to external lawyers that the EC's task of ensuring competition compliance would be subverted. Indeed, the ruling appears premised on an unstated and unwelcome inference that competition law enforcement would become harder as a result of granting LPP to in-house lawyers.
4 minute read

International Edition

Half of commercial disputes get personal - poll

A majority of disputes launched by companies are led by executives' hearts rather than their heads, according to new research published today (29 October). Almost half of the respondents (47%) to a poll conducted by mid-tier City law firm Field Fisher Waterhouse conceded that a personal dislike of the other side had led their company into expensive litigation.
2 minute read

International Edition

Zurich to expand law firm scoring system

Insurance giant Zurich is looking to expand a scoring system of its external legal advisers, making it the second major Swiss institution to introduce a wide-ranging process to formally grade lawyers.
2 minute read

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