To mark our inaugural Euro Elite report, management at leading independent firms give us their market views
CO-OPERATION IS KEY
‘Some international firms have been more open to co-operating with domestic Italian firms; others have not. The first category has been more successful.’
Francesco Gianni, founding partner, Gianni, Origoni, Grippo, Cappelli & Partners
KEEPING BUSY
‘I hear there is a massive change in the market. What I am seeing is that we’re busy. If I try to analyse why there’s some shift in the type of work we do – there’s more litigation, there’s more regulatory work, there’s more criminal work and there is less classic M&A work – it is because the increase in business is in the areas which are traditionally Russian law areas, as opposed to cross-border M&A or London IPOs.’
Dimitry Afanasiev, chair, Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners
COSTS COUNT
‘Clients that have a project in the [Central and Eastern Europe] region do not necessarily go through their UK or US lawyers any more. They may ask them who they’d recommend, but they do not involve them in the work because of the cost element.’
Erik Steger, co-managing partner, Wolf Theiss
POLES APART
‘We’re still confident that there’s a significant place for a full practice here, but we see signs that the market is polarising between high-end work and bulk work, and firms will differentiate themselves by making that distinction. We see there is still a willingness from clients to retain service providers to serve their high-end needs.’
Casper Herler, managing partner, Borenius
INTERNATIONALLY DOMESTIC
‘In every jurisdiction there is room for one or two very strong national firms to survive, even in an increasingly globalised market. But those national players must be of an international standing to be sustainable in the long-run and compete with these international or US firms. In our approach that means that we have offices in New York, London, Singapore, Shanghai and we have a network of best-friend firms that will ultimately give us the global reach that our clients ask for.’
Geert Potjewijd, managing partner, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek
LATE TO THE PARTY
‘Other independent French firms have to be highly specialised in a certain segment of the market. They can be quite successful, but they will only be able to compete in niche work. It is too late now for newcomers – the market is structured in a way in that it will be very difficult for a new entrant. This has been the case for the last ten years and has been reinforced since the crisis.’
Stéphane Puel, managing partner, Gide Loyrette Nouel
PRICE ISSUES
‘There are a lot of deals where people just focus on price and I know for a fact that [the] Magic Circle have some problems with pricing as well. The banking sector is really focused on cutting expenses, so this means that a lot of files are not going to the usual suspects.’
Vincent Busschaert, managing partner, Liedekerke Wolters Waelbroeck Kirkpatrick
TECH NATION
‘Sweden is much more of a tech and industry nation compared to Norway. Finland and Sweden are very similar when it comes to industry mix. As for the outlook, transactions are technology and intellectual property-driven, and there will be more of that in the future, definitely. Fintech is a growth area.’
Fredrik Rydin, managing partner-elect, Roschier
LOCAL KNOWLEDGE
‘It is difficult to try and say in this market that the quality would be higher with a UK firm. We don’t feel any on-the-ground competition, but we do feel competition primarily from London – the fly-in-fly-out approach. The Magic Circle firms tend to enter the market on larger deals and they retain one of the big four Danish firms as sub-suppliers to the extent they need some sort of local representation.’
Simon Evers Kalsmose-Hjelmborg, managing partner, Bech-Bruun
FADED GLAMOUR
‘International practices [in Paris] were much more business-oriented, and there was the capability to handle huge things because they were properly staffed and there was assistance internationally, which the French firms didn’t necessarily have at the time. Until quite recently, whatever came out of the UK or the US just appeared a bit more glamorous. There was no basis for this, but it was more glamorous to give your deal to Freshfields [Bruckhaus Deringer] than to give your deal to Gide [Loyrette Nouel]. Also Freshfields and the like ended up hiring probably the brightest or the best teams in the large French firms and brought them into their organisation.’
Mahasti Razavi, partner, August & Debouzy