Founder Favourites: Richard Farleigh on what playing chess, investing and starting a business have in common
Goldman to fight bonus fury in court December 15, 2009 INVESTMENT bank Goldman Sachs is being sued for billions of dollars in compensation after an institutional shareholder accused it of blindly “looting” the firm’s coffers by paying out rich rewards to its employees. The lawsuit, which has been filed with the New York Supreme Court by the Security Police and Fire Professionals of America Retirement [...]
Rosenblatt firm to raise 50m on Aim December 2, 2009 LITIGATION funding firm Alvaro is planning to raise £50m by listing on the Alternative Investment Market this month in a move that could transform the way expensive cases are funded in the City. Alvaro will be the first contingent litigation funding company with a UK focus to float when it lists on 16 December. [...]
CITY MOVES WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS November 26, 2009 PZ CussonsThe personal care firm has appointed Richard Harvey, the former chief executive of insurance giant Aviva, as its new chairman-elect. Harvey became group chief executive of Norwich Union in 1998 and took up his role at Aviva after the merger of Norwich Union with CGU, initiating the re-branding of the group under the Aviva [...]
Intel settles up with AMD in $1.25bn deal November 12, 2009 INTEL has agreed to pay rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) $1.25bn (£755m) to settle all outstanding legal disputes. The settlement ends a campaign that AMD has been waging against its larger rival which stretches back 12 years, and will give the firm vital funds to pay down its $3.2bn of debt. AMD took legal action [...]
CHOOSING SURVIVAL OVER LITIGATION November 11, 2009 MARCUS MCCAFFREYPARTNER, FORENSIC SERVICES, BAKER TILLY WHERE previous recessions have seen problems of funding, this time round global financial liquidity has shrunk to unprecedented levels. There are still few re-financing options and what is available is only on offer to those entities with strong balance sheets or guarantees. One result of this is that international [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS November 11, 2009 ALLIANZNomura upgraded Allianz to “neutral” for two reasons: first, the end of the deterioration in property and casualty underwriting as shown in the firm’s third-quarter results and, second, the broker’s reduced concern over Allianz’s exposure to litigation in its US life business. But the stock is still not one of Nomura’s top picks as it [...]
Banks are in the dock as litigation lawyers look for soft City targets November 9, 2009 LAUNCHING a lawsuit against a major bank has never been easy. As anyone who has been involved in heavyweight litigation knows, the process of bringing a claim of any kind is expensive, hazardous and distracting. Regardless of the merits, no bank is likely to roll over very easily when faced with legal action. In order [...]
Why insider trading is hard to prove November 3, 2009 LAST month, the FBI smashed an alleged $20m insider trading scheme centring on the New York hedge fund Galleon, when they raided its offices and arrested billionaire financier Raj Rajaratnam and five accused accomplices. In the wake of criticism of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in this country over its percveived toothlessness, the regulator is [...]
The long arm of US litigation is reaching over the Atlantic October 27, 2009 A COURT case launched in New York this month by shareholders from England, France and the Netherlands against French media company Vivendi, alleging fraud, has struck fear into European executives worried that they too might find themselves on the receiving end of US litigation. It is rare for the American courts to allow foreign shareholders [...]
Be aware of the law if you are setting up on your own October 27, 2009 WHETHER or not the recession has come to an end is still up for debate but it is clear that, for some, the phoenix is already rising from the ashes. The latest stats indicate that the number of new applications for FSA authorisations in London over the last quarter equalled the number of cancellations, so [...]