Euro Elite 2024: Nordics – Horizon scanning

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Euro Elite 2024: Nordics – Horizon scanning

With soaring interest rates, global instability, as well as political and economic insecurity both at home and abroad, the beginning of 2023 was a cautious and uncertain time for law firms across the Nordic region, particularly given the tumultuous year that was 2022. Nevertheless, the region has remained remarkably resilient to global pressures, with firms seeing 2024 as a year of opportunity, driven in part by weak local currencies in Sweden and Norway, developments in AI and ESG mandates, and a surprisingly active corporate space.

‘Like most lawyers, we were surprised at how good 2023 was,’ says Jan Dernestam, managing partner at Mannheimer Swartling. ‘We had to predict cautious budgets for 2023, but it’s looking like we’re up roughly 10% from 2022. This goes for most of the larger firms in Scandinavia.’ Overall, he notes: ‘It’s difficult to pick one area where we’ve been busy because we’ve been busy all over,’ despite the initially challenging market. Continue reading “Euro Elite 2024: Nordics – Horizon scanning”

Euro Elite 2024: Southern Europe – Treading carefully

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Euro Elite 2024: Southern Europe – Treading carefully

The Southern European market has been largely dictated by the recent inflow of foreign investment to the region, as the real estate, renewable energy, and corporate spheres profited extensively throughout 2023. The Euro Elite’s Southern Europe contingent comprises firms from the highly competitive Israeli and Greek markets. While Israel is technically not in Europe, it has been included in the Euro Elite analysis for some years. However, the country’s war against Hamas has sent shockwaves through its $431bn economy, affecting many thousands of businesses and plunging many industries into crisis – making any assessment of the legal market inappropriate at present.

At the close of 2023, Greece’s economic growth continued to outstrip that of other European nations, with the country experiencing a sector boom in the real estate and construction industries. George Bersis, managing partner of POTAMITISVEKRIS, partly attributes the progress down to ‘the reforms of the current pro-business government kicking in’ alongside ‘foreign direct investment’. Blackstone Real Estate Partners Europe is championing this investment drive, as evidenced by its purchase of five high-end hotel resorts for €178m. Continue reading “Euro Elite 2024: Southern Europe – Treading carefully”

Euro Elite 2024: Switzerland – Endurance race

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Euro Elite 2024: Switzerland – Endurance race

Switzerland’s legal market faces similar reversals to the world at large: regulatory shifts, geopolitical flux and technological advancements are keeping partners on their toes. ‘The legal market is always developing in parallel to the general economic situation,’ comments Bär & Karrer’s Susanne Schreiber, who co-heads the firm’s tax team. In Q1 2023, Switzerland’s annual inflation rate rose to a high of 3.4% in February, 0.6% up on December 2022. In Q2, things started to look up with rates decreasing to 2.6% in April. Since then, rates have been on a steady decline, remaining at 1.7% for both September and October 2023.

Interest rates, too, have stabilised. Since July 2023, the Swiss National Bank has kept its policy rate at 1.8%, providing a sense of stability to the Swiss economy. Practice areas such as litigation and tax were extremely busy in 2023 while areas like M&A and capital markets saw a decrease in deal volume compared to previous years. Banking and finance and real estate and construction remained stable throughout the year. Continue reading “Euro Elite 2024: Switzerland – Endurance race”

Resistance is agile – Euro Elite firms adapt to survive amid global turbulence

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Resistance is agile – Euro Elite firms adapt to survive amid global turbulence

Last year, our annual Euro Elite survey of 100 leading independent firms across more than 40 jurisdictions found partners in a positive mindset but nervous about the potentially bleak outlook for 2023. Those fears had some foundation.

Key market players – both new and old – said that the continent’s law firms would be remiss to forget that geopolitical conflict, the energy market crisis, the tightening of monetary policy and economic contraction loomed around the corner. The subsequent belt-tightening and inertia in the European deals market over the past 12 months has shown this has come to pass. Firms generally are quieter in terms of major corporate mandates and have a larger headcount than the boom year of 2021. This has inevitably taken its toll. Continue reading “Resistance is agile – Euro Elite firms adapt to survive amid global turbulence”