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Inside Counsel

Regulatory: Focusing on solutions to UDAAP challenges

Over the past four installments of this series, we have taken a quick look at how the consumer financial services industry ended up with a new regulatorthe Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
6 minute read

Inside Counsel

Cheat Sheet: What GCs need to know about government merger enforcement trends

Experts weigh in on trends in antitrust scrutiny, and give tips on avoiding enforcement actions
12 minute read

Inside Counsel

Securities class action settlements total lowest in a decade

A new study from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) found that the total federal securities class action settlement amount for 2012 hit a decade low.
2 minute read

International Edition

SFO co-head of bribery and corruption joins US law firm's London base

Steptoe & Johnson has recruited the Serious Fraud Office's (SFO's) joint head of bribery and corruption as a partner for its London office. Patrick Rappo, who joins the US firm's white-collar criminal defence practice today (15 April), practised as a barrister for 12 years prior to joining the SFO in 2007. At Steptoe he will work across regulation, compliance and litigation.
2 minute read

Inside Counsel

Recap: American Bar Association’s antitrust meeting

Last week, the American Bar Association (ABA) held its 61st annual spring antitrust meeting, which this year attracted a record crowd of more than 2,700 attendees.
2 minute read

Inside Counsel

Legal privilege in the wake of corporate scandals

Under most common law theories of evidence, legal privilege can be broadly defined as the right to refuse to disclose, or to prevent another person from disclosing, confidential information exchanged between a client and his or her attorney.
12 minute read

International Edition

Legal Services Board pledges to work better with regulators

The Legal Services Board (LSB) has restated its intention to work better with industry regulators following a series of criticisms by bodies including the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and the Bar Standards Board (BSB). The LSB – the independent body responsible for overseeing the regulation of legal services in England and Wales – this month released its finalised business plan for 2013-14, with the plan "re-scoped significantly"following complaints of micro-management and unnecessary intervention.
3 minute read

International Edition

A model of austerity? How Ireland's legal market is bouncing back from economic slump

"It's difficult to imagine where the Irish economy would be without the bailout programme," says Alan Murphy, managing partner of Eversheds' Dublin office. While Cyprus' government faces public outcry over accepting an EU bailout and Greece's rescue package appears to grow, Ireland's legal sector is beginning to see positive results from its drastic austerity measures. The country has now fulfilled 190 commitments to the European Commission (EC), European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) – the Troika – as part of its austerity programme. Ireland's finance minister Michael Noonan and minister for public expenditure and reform Brendan Howlin announced in February that it had successfully completed the programme conditions for Q4 2012, which included the enactment of the Fiscal Responsibility Act.
14 minute read

International Edition

New 'twin peaks' regulatory system faces questions as post-FSA era gets underway

On April Fools' Day, with the banks closed and the public scanning the news for prank stories, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) officially launched amid promises of tougher regulation and enforcement for the UK financial services sector. Given the long run-up to the Financial Services Authority's (FSA's) demise and the numerous announcements about its successors, the new bodies are not joking about their ambitions. But just how seriously they will go about addressing the failings of the FSA remains to be seen. Charged with regulating financial firms providing services to consumers and maintaining the integrity of the UK's financial markets, the FCA has already targeted a renewed focus on consumers, as well as continuing to address issues of misconduct (including those such as the recent Libor scandal), market abuse and competitiveness.
5 minute read

International Edition

Picking up the pieces - in-house lawyers and the fallout from the Leveson inquiry

First came the sordid details of Britain's best-selling newspaper hacking the phone of a murdered schoolgirl. Then came the inquiry and a cavalcade of top-tier celebrities mixed with a collection of the wannabes and the washed-up. That was followed by more gut-wrenching tales of press mistreatment of ordinary people, ranging from former schoolteachers to the families of killed and wounded soldiers. When the curtain finally came down on the lurid evidence, out came the report. But that only fired the starting pistol on political wrangling and professional manoeuvring – all of which reached a dramatic climax only last month.
10 minute read

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Legal Speak is a weekly podcast that makes sense of what’s happening in the legal industry.

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