Updated merger watch – CMS completes successful tie-up with Dundas & Wilson

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CMS Cameron McKenna and beleaguered Scottish firm Dundas & Wilson have merged, the firms announced this evening (12 December), creating a firm of 830 partners and 5,600 employees operating in 57 offices in 31 countries across the world with revenues of around €900m. The tie-up – led for CMS by managing partner Duncan Weston, senior partner elect …

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Bond Dickinson wins AIG tender for volume contract work

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  Following a competitive tender process between five of its panel law firms, AIG has awarded its bulk contract work to Bond Dickinson, as the insurance giant’s general counsel for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Chris Newby focuses his team on more strategic, higher level legal work. AIG concluded its main panel review in …

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Bond Dickinson wins AIG tender for volume contract work

Posted on | News review |

Merged regional giant beats four rivals for out-of-London mandates Following a competitive tender process between five of its panel law firms, AIG has awarded its bulk contract work to Bond Dickinson, as the insurance giant’s general counsel for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Chris Newby focuses his team on more strategic, higher level legal …

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The City elite is ready to try something new – are clients keeping up?

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Eighteen months ago I met the general counsel (GC) of a FTSE 250 company to listen to his plans to parcel up parts of his deals, based on complexity, and hand each chunk to a different panel adviser based on skillset, capability and cost. Until very recently, this level of micro-management – and the prospect …

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No pay for delay: Court of Appeal holds firm on costs decision in ‘plebgate’ case

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The post-Jackson hardline approach to costs budgeting was reinforced by a landmark Court of Appeal decision today (27 November) in a clear message to the profession that non-compliance will be ‘fatal’. This latest decision – the most significant of the post-Jackson era – arises out of Andrew Mitchell MP’s ongoing ‘plebgate’ defamation claim against The …

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Leadership: Andrew Saul takes over as senior partner at Osborne Clarke

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With its half year revenues up by 12% and following a two-year period of international investment, Osborne Clarke‘s (OC’s) UK senior partner Tim Birt is to stand down with London head Andrew Saul taking over the role. Corporate partner Saul – who joined 600-lawyer OC in 1996 as head of corporate and led the practice …

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Panel review: Taylor Wessing and KWM SJ Berwin secure spots on property developer Essential Living’s ten-strong panel

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Newly-formed rental property developer Essential Living has appointed a ten-strong panel of law firms to its roster as it focuses on ambitious development targets for the coming year, with Taylor Wessing and King & Wood Mallesons SJ Berwin securing advisory roles ‘with an overarching brief to provide corporate, finance and delivery advice,’ a statement said today (26 …

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Some eye watering growth statistics later and its goodbye from Latham’s Bob Dell

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When the ordinarily press-shy chair and managing partner of Latham & Watkins, Robert Dell, gave Legal Business his first-ever in depth interview in 2005, the interview began by reminding the reader that ‘Latham & Watkins used to be little more than a Los Angeles-based tax firm with ideas above its station.’ At the time of …

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‘Renaissance man’ Dembovsky leaves HowardKennedyFsi

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Last year Legal Business described Howard Kennedy’s chief executive Mark Dembovsky as ‘renaissance man’, having taken charge of a West End firm on shaky ground in January 2011 and orchestrated the merger of Howard Kennedy and Finers Stephens Innocent, to create the £40 million practice HowardKennedyFsi. Today, the top 75 firm announced that its first non-lawyer …

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