Why Boris owes me £90,000 for Olympic damage August 9, 2012 I HAVE hand-delivered a bill for £90,000 to the mayor of London. This is – give or take a few hundred pounds – what the Olympic Games have cost me in turnover since they began. And I have asked Boris Johnson to pay the bill personally, not from the seemingly limitless coffers that supported London [...]
SJ Berwin and Mayer Brown in merger talks May 22, 2012 ONE of the UK’s top law firms is in preliminary talks with a US peer over a tie-up that would create a £900m business, it emerged yesterday. According to The Lawyer, City firm SJ Berwin has held exploratory merger talks with Mayer Brown – a Chicago-based firm that has a significant London presence. The news comes just a [...]
Another banking scandal was the last thing the City needed August 6, 2012 JUST when it felt as if it couldn’t get any worse for the City, it is now Standard Chartered’s turn to be engulfed in a major scandal. The bank – which didn’t need a bailout and is hugely successful thanks to its emerging market focus – stands accused by US regulators of having deliberately ignored [...]
The journey of an idea from a classroom to the boardroom June 20, 2012 SUSAN Cooper is founder of Accutrainee, a start-up that aims to reduce costs and increase flexibility for law firms by outsourcing their trainee solicitor needs. The company employs the trainees and seconds them out when required. Cooper is a former lawyer – she spent several years working at Hogan Lovells and then in the construction [...]
Regulatory hurdles are the next challenge in HKEx bid for LME June 17, 2012 HAVING secured a recommendation from the board of the London Metal Exchange (LME) for its £1.4bn takeover last Friday, Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing (HKEx) will now be shifting its focus to winning approval for the deal from regulators. Though the deal is subject to shareholder approval – with a vote for major investors including [...]
City lawyer admits expense fraud March 27, 2012 A City lawyer faces a jail sentence after pleading guilty to defrauding his employer of almost £1.3m in false travel expense claims. Christopher Grierson, a former litigation partner at Hogan Lovells, admitted four counts of fraud yesterday at Southwark Crown Court, and will be sentenced on 3 May. The judge said it was “inevitable” that [...]
Warning over graduate job adverts after new legal ruling April 25, 2012 THE FREEDOM of companies to advertise graduate level jobs has been cast into doubt by a Supreme Court ruling over age discrimination towards an ex-policeman. Judges said Terence Homer, a former detective inspector who worked at the Police National legal Database, had faced indirect discrimination following the introduction of a new system of three salary [...]
Lawyers turning to US firms for higher pay and career prospects April 10, 2012 UK-QUALIFIED lawyers have cited higher salaries and better career prospects as the key drivers for joining US firms, according to a survey out yesterday. Despite expecting to work longer hours when working for an American firm, more than 23 per cent of associates surveyed by The Lawyer magazine said they joined the London offices of [...]
Dave and Nick fight back ahead of Queen’s Speech May 8, 2012 PRIME Minister David Cameron and his deputy Nick Clegg launched their coalition fight-back yesterday, visiting small firms in Essex ahead of a Queen’s Speech that they hope will boost business and reaffirm faith in the City. Today’s announcement of the coalition government’s plans will include a bill to slash red tape and may involve reforms [...]
Legal firms hit by fresh downturn April 30, 2012 LONDON’S increasingly embattled legal sector suffered a further blow yesterday, as magic circle stalwart Slaughter and May froze associate salaries and Herbert Smith announced 51 redundancies in its City office. Only second-year associates at Slaughters will see their pay packets rise, though by less than one per cent, while salary bands for the firm’s other [...]