Tax system to the rescue: Six policy tweaks that could kickstart the economy June 23, 2020 The past three months have seen a deluge of economic, political, and legal moves that would have been unthinkable at the start of the year. As civil liberties were curtailed on a scale never seen in peacetime and ten million children were turned away from school, new hospitals were built in a matter of weeks, [...]
European Medicines Agency to sublet Canary Wharf HQ to Wework after High Court defeat July 4, 2019 The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is leasing its entire London office to fast-growing flexible space provider WeWork, having lost a court battle to cancel its £500m rent contract in the wake of its planned move to Amsterdam post-Brexit. Read more: Europe’s development bank lured into new Canary Wharf HQ WeWork is taking up the 284,000 [...]
Barclays, Ruby Wax and mental health: How the banking giant is tackling stress in the City May 16, 2019 Square Mile careers are stereotypically fuelled by mantras such as "work-hard, play-hard", achieving "inbox zero", "surviving the rat race". All are excuses for raising your tolerance to stress. As a result the career pathways of the City are often littered with burned-out workers. Read more: Wellbeing should be top of the business agenda Unsurprising, stress [...]
Moulton-backed litigation funder Manolete Partners raises £29m in London float November 30, 2018 A litigation funder backed by City veteran Jon Moulton has raised £29.4m in its London initial public offering (IPO). Manolete Partners announced its intention to float on London’s Aim market today. It said it had conditionally raised £16.3m before expenses from the placing of 9,285,714 new ordinary shares with £13.1m before expenses realised by selling shareholders [...]
German money rises in West End after Verde deal September 24, 2018 German investment in the West End has reached £515m for the year-to-date on the back of last week's announcement that German fund manager Deka Immobilien GmbH completing one of the largest deals this summer, buying the Verde office building in Victoria for roughly £460m on Friday. The deal pushed investment levels up to £515m, compared with £476m [...]
Germany steps in to give UK financial services timely Brexit boost November 29, 2018 UK financial services firms could be allowed to keep operating in Germany following a no-deal Brexit after the German Treasury took matters into its own hands amid growing uncertainty. Draft law changes proposed last week could allow UK-based firms providing cross-border financial services to continue to operate in Germany until the end of 2020. The [...]
London comes top in overseas investment ranking as Asian demand flourishes October 8, 2018 London has kept its crown as the world’s most popular city for global real estate investment, according to a new report that sheds light on the burgeoning overseas demand for commercial property in the capital. Buoyed by an influx of Asian money, London has now held its position as the top city for cross-border investment [...]
Court short: Will Brexit loosen the UK’s legal grip? December 2, 2018 Last Thursday, Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska squared off against a fellow Russian businessman Vladimir Chernukhin in court 15 of London’s Rolls Building, while in court 28 two Romanian oil companies went toe-to-toe, and in Court 19 a Russian bank litigated against some of its former shareholders. London has developed into a pre-eminent international dispute resolution [...]
Could the UK be on the brink of a US-style class action explosion? December 16, 2018 The Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group, Tesco, Google and Mastercard. These are just a handful of the household names that have been targeted in group action lawsuits in the UK with billions of pounds at stake. The UK, unlike the US or Australia, does not have a long history of class action-style lawsuits, [...]
Stress in the City: How the UK’s top law firms manage employee wellbeing November 26, 2018 The legal world has been rocked by the recent suicide of a US partner which has led to an examination of the high-stress, long-hours culture prevalent in elite law firms. The widow of Sidley Austin partner Gabe MacConaill, who killed himself last month, wrote a heartbreaking open letter in the American Lawyer magazine detailing the [...]