While the legal market is never short of speculation about the next potential merger, last month saw news of an eye-catching deal bringing two parties from very different markets together with a fresh approach.
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The pandemic and GDPR regimes have heightened the litigation risk presented by data breaches and other cyber security issues in recent years.
Cyber attacks have grown in number and sophistication as businesses relied more than ever on technology to deliver their products and as remote working became the norm. According to a UK government report1, two in five businesses in Britain suffered cyber security attacks in the 12 months to March 2021, with an attached cost of £13,400 on average per data breach for medium and large companies.
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In April, Legal Business spoke to dozens of disputes counsel in private practice to ascertain the salient trends in contentious law. Near-universally, at the forefront of minds was an imminent and drastic increase in the volume of class actions and other group claims. Now, the in-house community has added its own wave of concerned voices.
A perfect storm of legal changes and market conditions have brought us to this point. In the UK for example, the seeds were planted in 2015 with the introduction of the Consumer Rights Act, which allowed UK consumers to seek collective redress on competition cases in a US-style class action system. Since then several class action claims have formed, among the most notable being the mammoth truck cartel case, in which thousands of individual and corporate claimants are pursuing damages from several of Europe’s biggest truck manufacturers over price collusion spanning multiple years.
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In the summer of last year, the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 (CIGA) was rushed through the UK Parliament in a five-week period to deal with the expected fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic. As the biggest change to the UK’s insolvency and restructuring legalisation in over 20 years, one of the cornerstones of this new legislation is the introduction of the Restructuring Plan. While many of the provisions and the intent of both the Restructuring Plan and the existing Scheme of Arrangement are not dissimilar, what is ground-breaking is the introduction of the Cross-Class Cram-Down mechanism (or CCCD) and the sharp focus this is bringing on evidence as to where value breaks within the capital structure of the company in question.
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Privately held since its founding in 1983, Alvarez & Marsal (A&M) is a leading global professional services firm that provides advisory, business performance improvement and turnaround management services.
With over 4,500 people across four continents, we deliver tangible results for corporates, boards, private equity firms, law firms and government agencies facing complex challenges. A&M leverages its restructuring heritage to turn change into a strategic business asset, manage risk and unlock value at every stage of growth.
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