Legal Business

Firm profile: KPMG

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Tax KPMG

About KPMG’s dispute resolution team

Our KPMG dispute resolution team has extensive experience assisting organisations resolving tax disputes, while maintaining an effective working relationship with tax authorities.

Tax law can be complex and uncertain and with each new development in the tax environment, the context for resolving
tax disputes changes. For companies, this could result in a position of conflict that requires strategy and expertise
to navigate.

Legal Business

KPMG names Linklaters deals guru Bedford as new UK law chief

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KPMGLinklaters

While traditional law firm leaders have to date largely scoffed at the progress made by the Big Four, today’s (20 December) news of KPMG appointing a Magic Circle corporate veteran as its new UK legal head will have turned heads.  

The accountancy firm revealed that Linklaters deals partner Stuart Bedford will become its head of law for the UK in April 2023, replacing the longstanding Nick Roome. Roome, who has held the post since 2015, is being promoted to a new role where he will concentrate ‘on growing KPMG’s global legal solutions.’ 

Bedford will bring with him a notable track record, having been named Linklaters’ London corporate head in 2014 and boasting several high-profile advisory mandates. During his career, Bedford has advised on the IPOs of Bumi, Fresnillo, Hochschild Mining, Xchanging, Britvic and Investec, and in 2015 he assisted Brait on its £1.9bn acquisition of New Look and its £1.3bn acquisition of Virgin Active.  

He also has considerable in-house experience, thanks to stints at BAE Systems, Grosvenor and an 18-month spell at private equity house Leapfrog Investments. 

Bedford said of his appointment: ‘I am excited to be taking on this new challenge and aim to build on the impressive strides KPMG Law has made in the past few years. We have a huge opportunity to build on the great work we are already doing at a time of accelerated change within the legal sector. I am very much looking forward to working with the team as we help our clients and the firm to achieve their ambition.’ 

Established in the UK in 2014, KPMG Law has made significant progress in the last couple of years. According to the firm, revenues have expanded by over 80% in that two-year period. 

This is on top of an ambitious growth strategy which was announced earlier this year. In May, KPMG Law revealed an eye-catching £300m investment programme designed to supercharge growth. Speaking to Legal Business in October, Roome said the programme gave him a mandate to hire over 200 new lawyers and nearly triple KPMG’s partner headcount, from 35 to 90, by 2024. He added this would largely be done via lateral hiring.  

For a comprehensive review of KPMG Law’s evolution since 2014, as well as the thoughts of law firm leaders on the rise of the Big Four, read our interview piece with Roome from October.  

tom.baker@legalease.co.uk  

Legal Business

Sponsor message: KPMG Law

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GC Powerlist 2022 KPMG

Vision, purpose, focus. From my experience in heading up a law business, these are essential ingredients for high performance organisations; essential ingredients for high performance teams; and essential ingredients for high performance individuals.

Legal Business

Revolving doors: KPMG and Orrick hire City partners as Ashurst and A&O focus on Germany

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Strategic recruitment Allen & OveryAshurstKPMGMacfarlanesOrrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe

Lateral hires in London and Germany were the order of last week, with KPMG  bolstering its City legal services bench, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe hiring a London-based energy and infrastructure partner, while Ashurst and Allen & Overy recruited practice heads in Germany.

Big Four accountancy firm KPMG has hired partners Kate Eades from Greenberg Traurig and Usman Wahid from Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner in a further boon to its legal services capabilities.

Corporate partner Eades’ experience includes advising on mergers and acquisitions, restructurings and joint ventures while Wahid is a commercial and technology partner focusing on IT/technology and outsourcing transactions. He has acted for clients on business critical software, new and disruptive technology as well as infrastructure deals.

UK head of Legal Services at KPMG Nick Roome (pictured) commented: ‘Our clients need the best expertise when they look to KPMG for support with business reorganisations, deals and other complex transactions, which is why we’ve brought in Kate and Usman. Their knowledge and skills will considerably strengthen the depth of our capabilities in this area and further enhance our ability to support KPMG clients with the challenges they face.’

The appointments follow that of Peter Workman in March who joined from PwC and leads the Midlands legal services hub and Angela Savin, who joined the legal service’s tax litigation team as partner from Norton Rose Fulbright in January.

Elsewhere in London, US firm Orrick has hired as a partner former Herbert Smith Freehills energy and infrastructure senior associate Hannah Roscoe.

Roscoe is experienced in global transactional and regulatory matters including project developments, financings and mergers and acquisitions.

Global head of Orrick’s energy and infrastructure group Blake Winburne told Legal Business: ‘Our strategy is to look at the opportunities that present themselves to us in Europe for transactions as well as opportunities that are available from that platform into developing markets around the world. Hannah is going to be an important member for us, particularly on the power regulatory side but also more broadly in the power sector as well as the infrastructure side.’

Macfarlanes is set to lose senior adviser and head of digital and innovation Mike Rebeiro after 18 months. He led an initiative introduced last year to develop the firm’s digital and innovation capability. The firm said Rebeiro will not be replaced, instead a number of partners from across the firm will be moving the initiative forward.

A spokesperson for Macfarlanes said: ‘Mike has led our team to a successful conclusion of our project and we believe we are now uniquely placed to advise our clients in all sectors on the disruptive effects of new technologies. We wish Mike every success in his future endeavours and thank him for the contribution he has made to Macfarlanes.’

Meanwhile in Germany, Ashurst has hired former Shearman & Sterling tax lawyer Anders Kraft to its Frankfurt office as head of tax.

Kraft has experience in national and international tax advice, capital markets transactions, internal corporate restructurings as well as general tax planning and tax disputes. He acts for domestic and international corporate clients, private equity firms, banks and financial services providers.

Managing partner of Ashurst in Germany Tobias Krug commented: ‘Anders is highly experienced in advising on the tax aspects of domestic and international real estate, private equity and corporate transactions and he is a perfectly complement to the European and German tax team.

He added: ‘Ashurst is already ideally positioned in these areas and Anders will make a significant contribution and help us deliver even more for our clients.’

Also in Germany A&O has hired Osborne Clarke data protection expert Ulrich Baumgartner to its Munich office as head of the data protection team in Germany.

Baumgartner focuses on German and European data protection law as well as cloud and IT law. He will work closely with the firm’s IP/tech team.

Senior partner of Allen & Overy in Germany Thomas Ubber commented: ‘Client demand for advice in the field of data and data protection has grown strongly in the wake of various new laws and increased digitalisation and use of technology.

‘With Ulrich, we now have the necessary enhancement at partner level and at the same time further develop our global consulting practice on cloud-based business models.’ Ubber added.

Finally, in Singapore, HFW has added dry shipping expert Christopher Metcalf to its growing shipping practice. Metcalf, who joins from Clyde & Co, has acted for vessel owners, charterers, offshore service contractors, oil majors, mining companies and traders in contentious and non-contentious matters in the shipping, offshore and oil and gas sectors.

In the last five months, HFW has added eight shipping experts globally including shipbroker Chris Jones and an Ince shipping team, which launched the firm’s Monaco office earlier this month.

muna.abdi@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

The Big Four meets GCs – The hard sell

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In-house EYKPMG

‘I have never instructed a Big Four firm on a legal matter,’ says one UK general counsel (GC) of a large multinational. ‘The accountants’ legal offering is not something I’m close to,’ concedes Tesco GC Adrian Morris. The respective legal chiefs at The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Lloyds Banking Group strike a similar note: ‘We don’t currently use any of them,’ says Michael Shaw, while Kate Cheetham notes: ‘Our use of these offerings is quite limited.’

Canvassing 20 GCs for this piece – including ten from the FTSE 100 – found only four had used the Big Four’s legal services.

Legal Business

KPMG ups the ante with 145-lawyer hire in France and new consultancy service

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Strategic recruitment KPMG

KPMG has added its name to the list of Big Four accountants ramping up their legal service offering in recent months, with a mammoth team hire from French law firm Fidal and the launch of a new legal consulting service.

News emerged today (8 February) that 145 lawyers have left Fidal to join the accountant’s newly created French legal arm, KPMG Avocats. The tax-focused team includes 26 partners, and KPMG Avocats plans to eventually grow its headcount to more than 400.

The move follows the end of a decades-long collaboration between KMPG and Fidal, with the French firm affiliated to its network until the early 2000s and later in a non-exclusive collaboration with the Big Four firm until July last year.

KPMG denied reports that the team hire had breached a clause in the termination agreement that prevented it from hiring Fidal’s partners or employees involved in the relationship.

‘On 2 July 2018, KPMG International gave a 12-month notice to terminate the cooperation agreement with Fidal,’ said a spokesperson for KPMG. ‘The constructive proposals, made to Fidal to ensure the future of their teams dedicated to the KPMG network, were rejected by the representatives of Fidal. In this context, a number of professionals have decided to leave Fidal and have expressed their wish to join KPMG Avocats.’

Despite the size of the move, the French legal elite remained unimpressed. A Paris partner of an international law firm told Legal Business: ‘We are not in the same market. They are not involved in big-ticket transactions. Where both Fidal and KPMG are good and cheaper than we are is due diligence. But frankly we don’t cross paths.’

Meanwhile, KPMG has launched a new legal consultancy service for in-house counsel. Called Legal Operations and Transformation Services, it will advise on areas including tech, flexible resources and risk management.

‘We are not a traditional law firm and we are not copying the approach of a traditional law firm,’ said KPMG head of legal Jürg Birri. ‘We focus on offering our clients integrated legal advice and technology led solutions and methodologies, in combination with a range of alternative legal managed services.’

KPMG’s legal arm employed more than 2,300 professionals at the end of last year. Birri said in May last year that it aimed to grow its headcount to 3,000 lawyers by 2021 . Last month it entered its 76th jurisdiction, opening an affiliated legal practice in Hong Kong called SF Lawyers.

KPMG’s latest announcements follow the news that Deloitte had hired Allen & Overy banking partner Michael Castle to head its UK legal arm after it became the last of the Big Four to become an alternative business structure in January last year.

marco.cillario@legalbusiness.co.uk

For more on KPMG’s legal services ambitions, read ‘KPMG: Still not a law firm, still not being taken lightly’

Legal Business

KPMG: Still not a law firm, still not being taken lightly

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Leadership KPMG

KPMG’s global head of legal Jürg Birri (pictured) does not know how much it will cost to reach its target of doubling its legal services arm to 3,000 lawyers in the next three years.

He floats $50m and $100m, but for him it is beside the point. It is the appetite he is seeing from KPMG’s member firms – spread across 154 countries and territories – wanting to invest in setting up a legal services arm.

Legal Business

In transformation: KPMG’s Barton to rework legal team amid review of external firms

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In-house KPMG
legal-business-default

KPMG’s UK general counsel (GC) Jeremy Barton is leading a transformation of its legal team, while also reviewing the broad range of relationships that KPMG has with law firm suppliers.

The Big Four accountant doesn’t currently have a formal panel, and Barton says this is unlikely to change, as he prefers an informal approach with external advisers. Regular law firms instructed by the legal team include DLA Piper, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Osborne Clarke and Pinsent Masons.

While Barton (pictured) would not be drawn on the exact nature of the changes, expected to conclude by September, he told Legal Business: ‘We are in the middle of a transformation of my team, which is ongoing, it is quite exciting. We don’t have a formal panel in terms of law firms but we are reviewing the broad range of relationships that we have.

Barton, who joined KPMG from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in December last year, added: ‘Suffice to say when one comes in as a new GC, you look at how things are arranged in the team and sometimes there are things you identify that the team agrees would be good to change. The process will come through into the autumn.’

At KPMG Barton is currently supported by a small team in the central legal function who are responsible for a mixture of corporate commercial work, intellectual property and technology as well as treasury, pensions and insurance work.

Barton also looks after a mix of lawyers and non-lawyers in the company’s contract unit team that deal with all client related matters, as well as KPMG’s practice protection team, which handles investigations and claims.

Prior to becoming GC at BCG, Barton spent ten years at Andersen as European and deputy GC and also held the global GC role at Ernst & Young. He took over at KPMG from Vanessa Sharp, who retired from the GC role at the accountancy giant after 18 years.

kathryn.mccann@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Mishcon acts for former Torex boss taking on RBS and KPMG in £128m fraud claim

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Litigation KPMGMishcon de ReyaThe Royal Bank of Scotland
legal-business-default

Mishcon de Reya is acting in a £128m claim against the Royal Bank of Scotland and KPMG brought by former Torex Retail chief executive Neil Mitchell, with Dentons and Stephenson Harwood advising the defendants.

Mishcon de Reya disputes partner Richard Leedham is leading for the claimant with Stephen Auld QC, Michael Clark and Sophie Webber of One Essex Court as barristers.

Dentons partner Steven Mills leading on the case, and has instructed Fountain Court’s Patrick Goodall QC and Richard Power.

Also named in the case are Torex financial advisers KPMG who are being advised by Stephenson Harwood partner Ros Prince.

Mitchell’s case is being heard in the Royal Courts of Justice in London and alleges fraud against RBS, KPMG and two KPMG named partners. He is also bringing a separate action in the US against New York-based firm Cerberus Capital Management.

Mitchell claims that collusion between RBS, Cerberus and members of Torex’s advisers led to the purchase of the company at around £400m below the firm’s value, which caused its collapse.

He first brought his concerns to the Serious Fraud Office after Torex was sold to Cerberus in 2007 for £204m, but was later dismissed from the firm.

Mitchell said: ‘This is a landmark case against a state-funded bank which I allege has been acting against the interests of taxpayers for a number of years. I am seeking justice not only for myself, but also in the public interest of the hundreds of viable British businesses, thousands of employees and their families.’

A spokesperson for RBS said: ‘We have thoroughly investigated Mr Mitchell’s allegations and believe them to be entirely without merit. Mr Mitchell has chosen to issue legal proceedings which will be met by a full defence.’

RBS is also expected to face further claims running into the billions of pounds from hundreds of small and medium-sized businesses that they were forced out of business for the bank’s profit. That litigation is being brought by Enyo Law.

A spokesperson for KPMG said: ‘We strongly refute the allegation that KPMG or its members have acted improperly; there is no substance to the claims that have been made. The Courts have previously dismissed similar allegations and we have applied to have the current proceedings struck out.’

Cerberus Capital Management declined to comment.

matthew.field@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

KPMG defeats judicial review challenge in Barclays swap case

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Finance BarclaysKPMG
legal-business-default

Accountancy giant KPMG has triumphed at London’s High Court today (24 February) after an unprecedented judicial review taken by Holmcroft Properties was dismissed.

In a case which would have opened the floodgates for other firms unhappy with their compensation from the banks, the Big Four accountant was sued by nursing home operator Holmcroft along with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Barclays.

Holmcroft questioned KPMG’s role as an independent reviewer in the compensation process of mis-selling of interest rate swap products. The FCA reached an agreement with Barclays to set up a scheme to provide redress to certain customers who had been wrongly sold these products. The bank agreed that an independent party, KPMG, should oversee the implementation and application of the scheme and that Barclays would make no offers of compensation before KPMG’s approval.

Holmcroft argued it was made an offer by Barclays that was inadequate and did not satisfy the criteria because it did not include compensation for loss which it alleged was a consequence of the mis-sale.

The company also alleged Barclays did not fairly deal with its application for consequential loss and when KPMG acted in breach of public law principles by approving the offer it made to it by Barclays.

Heard over two days in late January, a judgment handed down today by Lord Justice Elias and Justice Mitting said: ‘It would in fact be immaterial whether KPMG had properly reviewed the case or not. But in fact there is clear evidence that they did carry out the task which they were required to do pursuant to the undertaking.’

The judgment added: ‘KPMG also expressly reviewed the offer again following the further letter from Holmcroft. There is no basis for saying that they were in breach of any public law duty, even assuming that they were subject to such duties…We dismiss the application.’

Brick Court Chambers duo Richard Gordon QC and Malcolm Birdling were instructed by Mishcon de Reya for Holmcroft while Blackstone Chambers pair Javan Herberg QC and Hanif Mussa were instructed by Herbert Smith Freehills for the KPMG.

Blackstone Chambers trio Monica Carss-Frisk QC, Daniel Burgess and Kerenza Davis were instructed by Baker & McKenzie head of financial services Arun Srivastava for the FCA and the set’s high profile silk Dinah Rose QC was instructed by Linklaters for Barclays alongside barrister Ben Jaffey.

HSF partner Andrew Lidbetter said the judicial review confirmed KPMG had not been carrying out a public function.

‘It is also pleasing because the court found that the review had been conducted in a “conspicuously scrupulous” way and that there was “clear evidence” that KPMG had carried out its task appropriately.”‘

sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk