As Legal Business publishes its second annual Disputes Yearbook, Cornerstone Research scopes the views of in-house counsel and private practitioners to shine a light on trends within the international disputes market
At Legal Business’s first International Arbitration Summit held in London this September, esteemed practitioner Sir Frank Berman KCMG QC spoke about investor-state arbitration increasingly moving into public consciousness.
As European agencies turn up the heat on bribery and corruption, we team up with Simmons & Simmons to assess how clients are responding.
Until 1999 German laws allowed for some bribes to be tax deductible. Bribes or grease payments enabled German companies to get ahead overseas, or so many claimed. These payments were viewed as good for business and good for the German economy. At worst, they were a necessary evil.
Continue reading “Hard graft – The pan-Europe bribery crackdown”
As foreign investment into Africa grows, so does the demand for dispute resolution. We team up with Simmons & Simmons to assess how clients can get the best out of that crunch arbitration clause.
The attraction of Africa, and its abundance of natural resources, is undeniable. In 20 years, foreign direct investment (FDI) rose by 853% from just over $6bn in 1994 to $57.2bn in 2013, compared to a global average of 466% growth. It is unsurprising then that the increase in African-related arbitration has been robust. Where international investment goes, disputes invariably follow.
Continue reading “Clause and effect – The arbitration backing Africa’s investment boom”
While Morocco stands apart as a portal into Africa for foreign investors, neighbour Algeria starts to open up. We ask international law firms to share their experiences of working in the region.
In the globalisation race, Casablanca has established an early lead as one of the primary entry points into Africa, along with Johannesburg. It is akin to the emergence in the last decade of Hong Kong and Singapore as the key finance centres for Asia. But can Morocco and neighbouring Algeria achieve a position of genuine global influence, when Paris, London and also Dubai remain places where many African transactions are executed?
Continue reading “Gateways – the lawyer’s view on gaining access to North Africa”
Once a byword for bribery, the Asia region has toughened anti-corruption measures in recent years, but enforcement remains hard to predict. We team up with Simmons & Simmons to assess the client response.
Any multinational worthy of the label has to be in east and south-east Asia. The scale of the market, its manufacturing base, and its growing consumer population make it impossible to ignore.
Continue reading “Hunting Dragons – Anti-corruption in Asia”
With breaches impossible to stop, companies are focusing on managing the huge risks of a major cyber incident. We teamed up with PwC to gauge the client response.
In cyber security circles, it has already become a hoary cliché to claim that there are two types of companies: those that have been breached and those that have yet to discover they have been breached. This rang particularly true this year when JPMorgan revealed that 76 million households and eight million small businesses were exposed to its data breach over the summer.
Continue reading “Insight report on cyber security – Anatomy of a breach”
If you were to venture outside London to the major regional legal markets ten or 15 years ago, you would probably have been surprised. The energy, ambition and cohesive professional communities in these markets went well beyond expectations.
In the bars of Birmingham, Bristol and Manchester you would often meet individuals with that mix of personality, judgement and charisma that marks out the best commercial lawyers. No wonder so many of London’s sharpest legal operators used to be bred in the sticks.
Confidence is returning to the national UK economy, to the relief of clients and law firms alike. But, as our Regional Insight report shows, growth in legal services is still a relative term across local markets in continued flux.
The outward indicators are generally strong. Based on economic forecasts in 2014 from the likes of the International Monetary Fund and PwC, the UK is on track to become the fifth largest economy in the world by 2020, overtaking France.
But while PwC’s July 2014 economic outlook for the UK made the bold assertion that ‘all major industry sectors and regions are now showing positive growth trends’, inevitably those regions are starting from different positions, facing varying dynamics and contributing to the overall growth at significantly different rates.
