Magic Circle firms lead on £615m Swiss takeover of British electronics company

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Allen & Overy (A&O) and Slaughter and May have advised on the acquisition of British electronics company Premier Farnell by Swiss manufacturer Dätwyler for £615m.

A&O advised Leeds-based Premier Farnell, while Slaughters acted for Dätwyler on the transaction.

Announced in June, the deal sees London-listed Premier Farnell, which produces the Raspberry Pi single-board minicomputer, join the Swiss multinational. The deal is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2016.

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American dream: Bond Dickinson seals exclusive tie-up with Womble Carlyle

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The alliance will see all UK work referred to Bond Dickinson

With US merger plays by Addleshaw Goddard and Berwin Leighton Paisner dominating headlines so far this year, last month mid-market UK national firm Bond Dickinson signed an exclusive strategic alliance with full-service US firm Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice.

The deal means that Womble Carlyle, which has operated on a non-exclusive referral basis with Bond Dickinson for approximately six years, will refer all UK work to the firm and vice versa.

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Ashurst retreats in Europe, closing Stockholm and Rome

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Ashurst closed the doors to two of its European offices in June, confirming it will dissolve its Swedish offering with the entire team of 30 staff in its Stockholm office moving to Hamilton.

The firm will also close its base in Rome with its remaining lawyers relocating to Milan following a review of its Italian offering after a string of exits. The fate of the office was sealed following the resignation of the Rome office’s sole partner Aian Abbas.

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The finance view: Bespoke and busy – no return to the cookie cutter but plenty of creative lawyering for City’s property finance teams

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Victoria Young reviews the changing property finance landscape

Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) head of real estate finance Naveen Vijh surveys a much changed landscape: ‘We have a much more diverse client market now. It is important to know the whole of the market, its whole breadth.’

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Lloyds offers bonus for help filling senior legal roles amid shake-up

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Unease over department restructuring continues

Lloyds Banking Group is pushing an incentive scheme to its lawyers to secure new recruits into senior legal roles following a string of exits. The move comes after the bank made multiple redundancies as part of an ongoing restructure.

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Eversheds, Hogan Lovells and Bakers secure spots on defence multinational’s first panel

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Eversheds, Hogan Lovells and Baker & McKenzie are among nine firms to have won places on French multinational aerospace, defence and security firm Safran’s inaugural global legal panel.

Weil, Gotshal & Manges, as well as Fieldfisher and Osborne Clarke (OC) have also made the roster, alongside domestic French boutiques Betto Seraglini, Brunswick Société d’Avocats and Courrégé Foreman.

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Revealed: SFO records £2.1m spend on Forex investigation

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External legal spend hits £330k on dropped inquiry

Having closed its investigation earlier this year due to ‘lack of evidence’, it has emerged that the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) spent £2.1m investigating alleged rigging of the foreign exchange (forex) market in less than two years.

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Bankrupted Russian oligarch wins injunction barring Dechert from acting in $180m dispute

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A High Court judge has ruled Dechert was wrong on the law relating to legal privilege, barring it from acting for its client in a $180m dispute.

Russian businessman Mikhail Shlosberg last month secured an injunction against Dechert acting for creditor Avonwick in the case, which has set a precedent on legal privilege.

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