Legal Business

‘A more comprehensive solution’: Bird & Bird creates IT consultancy

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Innovation Bird & Bird
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Partners at Bird & Bird have joined the rush to expand into consultancy work, launching an IT project consultancy Baseline in a joint venture with Lancashire-based ASE Consulting.

The partners, led by co-head of Bird & Bird’s transformational project team Dominic Cook, have invested their own capital in the project and have struck a deal to pass legal work back to the firm.

Baseline, which has an international remit, will initially focus on supporting challenging IT projects by providing support for legal, financial, commercial, technical and management skills aspects. The venture will help review, recommend and resolve issues holding companies back and also assist in the initial planning, design and procurement phases of communications projects.

Cook, who is instructed on BT’s multi-billion pound IT contract for the NHS, has been a partner at Bird & Bird for 18 years and is also an associate fellow of the Oxford Saïd Business School. He said the new business venture ‘will focus on delivering for organisations that are crying out for more effective one-stop, multi-disciplinary support’.

ASE consulting director Robin O’Connor added: ‘By combining Bird & Bird’s approach with our own highly developed change management techniques, we believe we can deliver a new, integrated service that will be a much more effective solution to the challenges faced.’

Bird & Bird’s move follows those made by Eversheds to expand its consulting arm into financial services regulatory compliance work and RPC’s hire of Rory O’Brien to establish a new management consultancy business.

David Kerr, chief executive of Bird & Bird, said ‘Clients are increasingly requiring us to deliver our legal services in new ways and we have to think of innovative approaches to meet that demand. Baseline is an excellent example of how, we can be part of a more comprehensive solution for clients. That helps our clients and means we will be able to attract more high quality legal work, so it is a really significant step forward for the firm.’

tom.moore@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Financials 2013/14: Bird & Bird LLP accounts show fall in profits as firm ramps up headcount

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Financial results 2013/14 Bird & Bird
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Bird & Bird’s latest limited liability partnership (LLP) accounts show turnover at the firm grew 5% from €293m to just under €309m in the year to 30 April 2014, but that profit at the LLP was down 5% from €60.3m to €57.1m as staffing costs rose.

The firm’s net current assets on its consolidated balance sheet also dropped 15% from just under €108m in 2013 to just over €91m as the amount owed to creditors due within one year rose from €62m to €89m. Similarly, the firm’s net current assets on its LLP balance sheet fell from over €82m down to €65m.

Staff costs at the firm went up 10% from €128m to €142m while overall salaries at the firm grew from just under €105m to €115m while other expenses associated to staff costs also increased by a huge 40%. The rise was driven by the average number of persons (excluding partners) employed by the firm going up 9% with fee-earner headcount growing from 856 in 2013 to 926 in 2014, and support heads increasing from 738 to 806.

The average number of partners, in comparison, was roughly the same at 233 in 2014, but the highest paid partner received €911,000 – considerably less than in 2013 when the highest paid took home just over €1m.

Around this time last year, Bird & Bird’s turnover was up 8% to €293m from €270m the previous year, while profit was down 7% from nearly €65m in 2012 to €60.3m in 2013.

The tech-centric firm recently committed to a pre-let that will see it pay £8.28m a year to lease 12/14 New Fetter Lane. The agreement, which weighs in at £58.11 per sq ft, makes the annual cost of the property worth 38% of Bird & Bird’s current leasehold expenditure globally.

The firm also restructured its debt last year with Paul Colvin, chief financial officer at Bird & Bird saying to Legal Business: ‘We have always been very proud of the fact that we have a conservative approach to our finances, and a number of recent high profile cases have shown that approach was sensible.’

Colvin added: ‘However, the value of ensuring we have a strong balance sheet and a very transparent position on our liabilities – for example by ensuring we do not have “off-balance sheet borrowing” – really shone through during our discussions earlier this year about restructuring our finances. We had a wide choice of banks who were keen to support us and the end result is a very substantial saving for the firm, so we are delighted!’

jaishree.kalia@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

£58.11 per sq ft: Bird & Bird loses major patent litigator as it commits to £8.3m annual rent bill

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Strategic recruitment Baker BottsBird & Bird
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Mark Heaney, who heads Bird & Bird’s highly regarded electronics sector group, is leaving for US firm Baker Botts at the end of the year.

Heaney, who started at DLA Piper before being offered partnership in Bird & Bird’s intellectual property group in 2000, has resigned from the firm and will depart at the end of 2014. A handover process is currently in place.

He will become the fourteenth Baker Botts partner in London, which, like its practice in the US, is heavily focused on the energy and gas sector.

A patent litigator by trade, Heaney has been involved in big ticket electronics disputes including Alcatel v Marconi, Halliburton v Smith International and Storage Computer v Hitachi. Heaney successfully defended Microsoft last year after Motorola claimed the software giant had infringed a patent for email synchronisation technology. The England & Wales Court of Appeal found the patent invalid on the ground of obviousness.

He is also the second major patent litigator to leave Bird & Bird for a US firm in the last 18 months, with the firm’s co-head of life sciences Trevor Cook having departed for Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr.

The tech-centric firm recently committed to a pre-let that will see it pay £8.28m a year to lease 12/14 New Fetter Lane. The agreement, which weighs in at £58.11 per sq ft, makes the annual cost of the property worth 38% of Bird & Bird’s current leasehold expenditure globally. In 2013/14 the firm paid £21.5m in rent.

Last year, CMS Cameron McKenna agreed a move to cannon place for £42 per sq ft and one managing partner said that Bird & Bird’s deal ‘seems a little high’.

A spokesperson for Bird & Bird said: ‘We have not decided on the outcome of our other three buildings in London but have flexible terms in place whereby we can assess growth levels at a later date.’

tom.moore@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

RBS Litigation: Bird & Bird loses major instruction on RBS Group Action to Fladgate

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Litigation Bird & BirdFladgate
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A major blow has been dealt to Bird & Bird as it has emerged that the firm has lost its advisory role on the highly complex Royal Bank of Scotland shareholder dispute, a significant instruction which has subsequently been given to Fladgate.  

Bird & Bird was heading one of two large claims against RBS, with a team led by its dispute resolution head Steven Baker and Serle Court’s Philip Marshall QC, who continues to act as lead counsel. The firm picked up the mandate as Baker took the RBS case with him when he joined from Olswang in 2012. The Group Action’s website now states: ‘We are represented by the leading law firm Fladgate, which has an outstanding track record in corporate litigation.’

Bird & Bird had been representing the bank’s former chief executive John Greenwood and the RBoS Shareholders Action Group Limited, with around 12,000 retail and around 100 corporate, institutional and charitable members (the BB Action Group). 

Having lost the instruction last Wednesday (12 November), the firm said in a statement: ‘In what is a very complex and substantial claim our team has worked extremely hard for the group of claimants to ensure their case has been taken forward effectively, and we have continued to work on their behalf despite issues with receiving payment of our fees from the Action Group. We are therefore disappointed that the Action Group has chosen to take the decision to dis-instruct us, but we wish the claimants success in their ongoing legal dispute’

The floodgates opened for RBS following its £20bn government bailout in 2008, with investors seeking to recoup their losses following its nationalisation.

The action is being brought against the bank’s former chief executive Fred Goodwin and three other directors, and relates to a rights issue in April 2008, in which RBS sold its shares at £2 per share. The claimants allege that the prospectus on which the rights issue was based was ‘defective’ and contained material misstatements and omissions.

Earlier this year, Baker was criticised at the High Court over a £500m fluctuation in the value of the claim. In his witness statement to the court in November 2013, Baker told the court: ‘the losses suffered by the members of the BB Action Group who have actually issued proceedings so far would equate to approximately £900m…and the total acquisition value of those claimants’ shares is £1.25bn.’

Such figures were subsequently relied on by Mr Justice Hildyard in the third case management conference, however, in his seventh witness statement in January in the proceedings, Baker corrected these figures to £392m (in place of £900m) and approximately £490m (in place of £1.125bn) respectively.

RBS is also facing a second case involving a group of 313 claimants that comprises a number of UK and international financial institutions and pension funds, led by Stewarts Law partner Clive Zietman and 3 Verulam Buildings’ Andrew Onslow QC.

Herbert Smith Freehills continues to defend RBS in both cases.

sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

‘An important step in executing our strategy’: Bird & Bird opens in Australia following merger with local ally

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Australia Bird & Bird
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Bird & Bird is establishing an Australian office by merging with Sydney-based Truman Hoyle, 20 months after entering into a cooperation agreement with the firm.

The merger will go live on 3 November 2014, bringing the number of Bird & Bird offices around the world to 27.  The new Australia office will be run by Shane Barber, the current managing partner of Truman Hoyle. The office is home to 25 lawyers, including eight partners.

In Asia Pacific, Bird & Bird’s offices include Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and Singapore and the firm has made growth in the region its top priority. Over the last 18 months the firm has undertaken a series of strategic cooperation agreements, sealing tie-ups with Korean firm Hwang Mok Park in March and Indonesian firms K&K Advocates and Nurjadin Sumono Mulyadi & Partners in June.

The firm has also upped its level of lateral recruitment in the region during 2014, with Hong Kong-based corporate partner Sven-Michael Werner arriving from Taylor Wessing in January and employment partner Ying Wang in Shanghai, where she will head its Employment practice for China. 

David Kerr, chief executive of Bird & Bird, said: ‘Opening an office in Australia is an important step in executing our strategy of continued expansion in the Asia Pacific region. The Australian economy is an obvious fit for Bird & Bird as it is one of the world’s leading knowledge economies, with a significant services sector and major investments in innovation.’

Kerr added: ‘Acting as one firm will enable us to further grow our operations in the region and offer our clients the same type and quality of legal services as in our other offices across Asia Pacific and globally.’

Shane Barber, managing partner Truman Hoyle/Bird & Bird Australia, added: ‘Our clients are predominantly new economy businesses, and as such they operate on an increasingly global stage. By merging with Bird & Bird we are better able to service their needs and deliver truly international reach and capability.’

tom.moore@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Revolving Doors: Arnold & Porter and Squire Patton Boggs make moves in the City while Bird & Bird brings in a new head of corporate in Poland

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Strategic recruitment Arnold & Porter Kaye ScholerBird & BirdSquire Patton Boggs
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Squire Patton Boggs has recruited a London projects team from Nabarro spearheaded by partner Robin Baillie, as Arnold & Porter bolsters its life sciences group and Bird & Bird brings in Gide Loyrette Nouel partner Rafał Dziedzic to head its corporate practice in Poland.

Baillie, who specialises in advising governments on infrastructure projects and has 15 years’ experience under his belt, is joined by Nabarro associates Stefanie Atchinson and Anna Le Jehan.

Partner Philippa Chadwick, who leads Squire Patton Boggs’ global projects group, said: ‘The arrival of Robin and his team gives a significant boost to the development of our international projects and Public Private Partnership (PPP) capability. Robin, Stefanie and Anna give us additional resources and know-how here in London to handle a growing number of projects both in the UK, Ireland and Western Europe but also further afield, particularly the Middle East.’

Baillie added: ‘Squire Patton Boggs has a great track record of PFI/PPP in the UK, Europe and Asia and is now developing that capability in North America. It’s great to join such a strong projects team in the UK that also has such a powerful global platform.’

Squire Patton Boggs was not the only US-based firm to make a London play, with Arnold & Porter picking up corporate partner Blaine Templeman from Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton. Templeman will split his time between London and New York and his hire is a direct response to the increased link between Europe and the US in the pharma sector following recent mergers.   

Tim Frazer, head of Arnold & Porter’s London office, said: ‘Blaine’s skills and experience on the European side of commercial life sciences transactions expands our depth in this critical and ever-changing sector, and will be of great benefit to our clients in the UK.’

 ‘Arnold & Porter has a large number of lawyers with deep experience in the industry, which will enable me to broaden my service to clients and allow for collaboration with my new colleagues both nationally and overseas,’ said Templeman.

Meanwhile in Europe, Bird & Bird appointed Rafał Dziedzic as head of its corporate and M&A practice in Warsaw. Dziedzic joins from Gide Loyrette Nouel where he was head of the M&A and corporate department for the country.

Maciej Gawroński, head of Bird & Bird’s Warsaw office, said: ‘Our clients who have worked with Rafał before congratulated us on winning him for our firm. He is well-known for his in-depth experience, knowledge and market understanding, which combined with the know-how and reputation of the whole Bird & Bird team will allow us to build a strong and stable corporate practice in Poland, focusing in particular on M&A transactions.’

tom.moore@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

The early Bird & Bird catches the worm – firm prepares to practise Chinese law

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Asia Bird & Bird
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Bird & Bird has put plans in place to gain entry to a pilot scheme in China that will allow international firms to practise Chinese law for the first time.

Bird & Bird is looking to establish a joint venture with a Chinese law firm under a pilot scheme set to launch in the southern province of Guangdong. International law firms are currently unable to practise PRC law and the proposal could lead to liberalisation of the country’s legal services market. The ten firms that get the go-ahead to launch joint venture practices in Guangdong will be entitled to practise PRC law across China.

Legal Business understands that the firm, which is one of under four international firms to have a tie-up with a Beijing law firm, is mulling extending its relationship with Lawjay Partners to launch a joint venture in the province under a scheme set to offer 10 firms in Hong Kong or Macau the chance to establish a joint venture with a Chinese firm. Authorities in Guangdong and Hong Kong are looking to get the pilot, which is an extension of the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) designed to offer Hong Kong businesses access to markets in mainland China, off the ground before the end of 2015. The firm currently refers all PRC law and litigation work to 50-person strong Lawjay Partners, which it formed an association with in 2009.

Justin Walkey, Bird & Bird’s chairman of Asia Pacific, told Legal Business: ‘Our focus would be on the one or more licences to be granted in Shenzhen, as it’s extremely close to the border with Hong Kong and is therefore commutable for Hong Kong staff and has a strong technology focus, with a lot of incubators for tech companies.’

Bird & Bird currently has 45 lawyers in Hong Kong, including 10 partners, and will need to meet minimum investment requirements if it is to appease the Chinese authorities. The firm already has outposts in Beijing and Shanghai but, like all law firms, has struggled to make profits due to their exclusion from the local market.

Walkey adds: ‘It’s CEPA on steroids. What with the number of free trade zones coming up, it potentially cures the conundrum of what’s going to happen to international law firms in China with a closed legal market as clearly the Chinese firms are catching up. The key to being selected is around the identification and selection of the Chinese law firms, being pre-qualified, rather than who they get into bed with.’

At present, Chinese lawyers that move to international law firms have to give up their local practising certificate but this will not happen under this scheme, allowing those selected to have a blend of local and international lawyers. Walkey explains: ‘For Bird & Bird’s model we’re not trying to exclusively practise the international work with international lawyers at international rates. We do a blend of local and national work and you need both sets. It gives you challenges as you’re going to have salary differentials and rate differentials to deal with but that’s no different to what we had in places like Singapore. It [The joint venture] will allow us to have a slightly different cost base for doing local China work, which currently we couldn’t really do if we’re being held to price competition with local firms.’

Under the draft ordinance, joint ventures are excluded from practicing administrative law and criminal law, the latter of which may create a hurdle for Bird & Bird, due to the large amount of IP infringement work it handles that are criminal and civil offences.

tom.moore@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Bird & Bird secures dual Indonesia tie-up in continued Asia push

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Asia Bird & Bird
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Bird & Bird has signed strategic co-operation agreements with two Indonesian law firms, intellectual property specialists K&K Advocates and business law firm Nurjadin Sumono Mulyadi & Partners (NSMP).

The agreements, which were signed on 24 June in Jakarta, come as the top-20 firm, which already has a presence in Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and Singapore, experiences a period of rapid growth in the Asia-Pacific region stemming back 18 months.

Legal Business

Bird & Bird secures further international tie-up with Istanbul tech leader BTS

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Legal mergers Bird & Bird
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Bird & Bird has entered into a cooperation agreement with leading Istanbul IT and telecoms boutique BTS & Partners, just a week after announcing a similar arrangement with two Indonesian firms.

Bird & Bird has a longstanding working relationship with BTS, which is rated by The Legal 500 as a first tier firm in the IT and telecoms sector.

The Turkish tie-up is said by the top 20 firm to be in response to increasing client demand for legal services in the transcontinental jurisdiction, particularly in the technology sector, which is also one of Bird & Bird’s core areas of focus.

It is hoped by both firms that the association will allow them to provide domestic legal services for multinational corporations competing in the Turkish market and for the growing number of Turkish companies competing in the global markets.

Bird & Bird is the latest in a line of firms to strike a Turkish alliance, after November saw CMS launch a presence in Istanbul led by corporate partner John Fitzpatrick. In February 2013 Pinsent Masons entered into a joint venture with local lawyer Noyan Göksu – formerly head of arbitration at Turkey’s largest law firm Hergüner Bilgen Özeke – while US firm Edwards Wildman received approval from the Istanbul Bar Association to operate as a foreign law firm, offering services in cross-border private equity and corporate M&A. In addition, it confirmed an association with local boutique Ismen in early September.

Bird & Bird’s CEO David Kerr said: ‘Turkey has proved a significant region for our clients, particularly those in technology driven sectors. BTS & Partners has been repeatedly ranked as a regional leader in technology and innovation and together we will be able to provide our clients with a high quality, comprehensive offer on a local and global level.’

Yasin Beceni, managing partner of BTS, added: ‘BTS’s local knowledge and Bird & Bird’s global capabilities for advising clients in industries that are being disrupted by the use of technology will help us provide even more comprehensive and unique solutions for both national and multinational clients.’

At the end of June Bird & Bird announced it had signed strategic cooperation agreements with two Indonesian law firms, intellectual property specialists K&K Advocates and business law firm Nurjadin Sumono Mulyadi & Partners.

Tom.moore@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Bird & Bird secures dual Indonesia tie-up in continued Asia push

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Asia Bird & Bird
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Bird & Bird has signed strategic cooperation agreements with two Indonesian law firms, intellectual property specialists K&K Advocates and business law firm Nurjadin Sumono Mulyadi & Partners (NSMP).

The agreements, which were signed yesterday (24 June) in Jakarta, come as the top 20 firm, which already has a presence in Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and Singapore, attests to experiencing a period of rapid growth in the Asia Pacific region over the past 18 months.

Most recently, Bird & Bird announced in February a tie-up with one of Korea’s top 10 law firms, Seoul-based Hwang Mok & Park, which follows similar associations with Lawjay Partners in Beijing for Mainland China IP litigation support and Tay & Partners in Malaysia. A further cooperation agreement in the Middle East is said by the firm to be close to completion.

Justin Walkey, chairman of Bird & Bird’s Asia-Pacific practice, said: ‘The introduction of the ASEAN Economic Community has accelerated client expectations and in turn created a strong demand for Bird & Bird’s services within the participating countries and in particular within Indonesia. The combination of these cooperation agreements with K&K and NSMP in Indonesia together with our existing Singapore and Malaysian service hubs will allow us to better support new and existing clients in South East Asia and the ASEAN region.’

NSMP, which was founded in 2006, is a five-partner firm with 24 lawyers covering sectors focussed on by Bird & Bird such as aviation, media and telecommunications.

K&K, recognised as a third-tier IP firm by The Legal 500, is a three-partner firm with seven lawyers and has been actively involved in government outreach programmes, advising companies with new IP laws and regulations. The Indonesian directorate general of intellectual property rights, which received 62,813 trademark applications in 2013 to place the country in the top ten ASEAN nations for filings, is currently revising current trademark law and is implementing regulations to provide greater legal certainty.

Bird & Bird CEO David Kerr said: ‘The Indonesian economy is fast moving into a new consumer led development phase which has resulted in a growing demand for high-quality, international advice in areas where technology and regulation are driving change.’

Iwan Nurjadin, founding partner of NSMP, added: ‘With an increasing number of cross-border transactions requiring common law concepts and terminology, businesses need advisors with an international mind-set. We believe these associations will make it easier for our clients to realise their potential in the global markets.’

Tom.moore@legalease.co.uk