Legal Business

Simmons lands Olswang heavyweight Michael Burdon in senior exit ahead of triple merger

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Litigation CMS UKSimmons & Simmons

Ahead of his firm’s triple merger with Nabarro and CMS Cameron McKenna, Olswang veteran Michael Burdon is to leave for Simmons & Simmons to reinforce the firm’s intellectual property (IP) offering.

Burdon will join on 2 May, one day after the triple merger’s live date. While at Olswang he was head of European patent litigation and a partner in the firm’s IP group.

Burdon was the interim chief executive of Olswang following the sudden departure of David Stewart in October 2015. He was an elected board member at the firm and previously head of the firm’s commercial group. Burdon joined Olswang in 2002, having previously been a partner at Eversheds.

His exit will come as a blow to Olswang as it loses lawyers from one of its core practices ahead of the merger with Camerons and Nabarro. Last week, it was announced that Dentons would be taking on a team of four patent lawyers alongside partner Justin Hill from Olswang, as well as a trainee and two support staff to launch a UK patents practice.

Simmons head of IP Rowan Freeland said: ‘Michael’s arrival adds bench strength to our IP team who continue to provide cutting-edge advice for clients. He is a highly skilled patent litigator and a really nice guy, and I look forward to working with him.’

Simmons has already added three new partners since the start of the year, most recently taking on Emily Monstiriotis , former head of construction disputes at Bond Dickinson. The firm has also bulked out its capital markets offering with the addition of Simon Ovenden from Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, as of 1 May, and Jonathan Mellor from Allen & Overy (A&O).

The hire comes after Simmons lost four IP partners which left for A&O last year. The Magic Circle firm added Marc Döring, Marjan Noor, Mark Heaney and David Stone, who joined A&O’s IP team led by Nicola Dagg.

matthew.field@legalease.co.uk

Read more in: ‘Sale of the century – Has Camerons picked up a bargain with Olswang and Nabarro?’

Legal Business

Freshfields and A&O latest in the Magic Circle to post spring trainee retention rates, keeping on 84% and 82% respectively

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Trainee retention Allen & OveryFreshfields Bruckhaus DeringerSimmons & Simmons

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Allen & Overy (A&O) have both kept on 31 members of their spring trainee intake, with retention rates of 84% and 82% respectively.

Freshfields will keep 84% of its group of 37 trainees – 31 offers were made to the cohort with all agreeing to stay on as newly-qualified (NQ) lawyers. The rate is up slightly on last year’s spring retention figure of 82% when the firm again kept on 31 trainees out of a group of 38. The firm offered 33 of 38, or 87%, of its trainees places.

Also posting its trainee retention figures this month is A&O which posted a spring retention rate of 82%, compared to a rate of 91% this time last year. The Magic Circle firm held on to 31 applicants after 32 of the group of 36 received offers from a cohort of 38.

The results follow Slaughter and May’s 100% retention of its trainees, keeping all 25 due to qualify in March. Slaughter and May, Freshfields and A&O have outshined Clifford Chance (CC) which has kept on just 31 of its 46 trainees or 67% of its cohort. CC had 43 out of 46 apply for a contract, it made 33 offers and retained 31. Comparatively, CC retained 91% of its trainees in spring 2015, and 80% in spring 2016.

Meanwhile, Simmons & Simmons claims an 80% retention rate, offering 12 trainees in its spring cohort an NQ role. The firm said 14 out of 15 applied for a position, 12 offers were made and accepted.

This time last year, the firm announced nine trainees had gone through the qualification round while it later emerged there were actually 13 trainees on the intake, which gave Simmons a lower intake rate of 54%, rather than that declared of 78%.

madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk

 

Legal Business

Revolving doors: Cleary loses partner to Simmons as Jenner & Block adds from White & Case

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Strategic recruitment Cleary Gottlieb Steen & HamiltonJenner & BlockSimmons & Simmons

In a busy week for London appointments, Haynes and Boone, Simmons & Simmons and Jenner & Block have all made hires.

Simmons has boosted its capital markets group with the arrival of Simon Ovenden, who will join the firm’s London office as a partner from Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton on 1 May 2017. The hire follows the similar appointment of Jonathan Mellor, who joined Simmons’ capital markets group from Allen & Overy in January 2017.

Ovenden has a background in representing financial institutions in jurisdictions ranging from the US to Nigeria and Pakistan.

Haynes and Boone has made a string of simultaneous hires, bringing in Emma Russell, Zoe Connor and Andreas Silcher.

Russell and Connor join Haynes and Boone’s London office as partners, where they will advise on a broad range of finance transactions. Russell joins from Carey Olsen while, Connor, joins from Ashurst where she was a senior associate.

Silcher rejoins the firm after a tenure as general counsel of the liquefied natural gas division of the Cardiff/Dryships group. An expert in oil and gas, Silcher said: ‘Haynes and Boone CDG is extremely well known and respected for its work in the shipbuilding and offshore energy sectors.

‘I’m excited to help build on that reputation and to also be part of a full-service firm that is quickly expanding its English law capability and global reach.’

Also adding to its London capacity is Jenner & Block, hiring Jason Yardley as a litigation partner.

Yardley, who has over two decades of international litigation and arbitration experience, has acted in cases concerning the TMT sector in addition to banking, finance and mining. Yardley joins from White & Case where he spent almost 17 years litigating disputes across Europe, North America, Africa and Asia and sat on the firm’s partnership committee. The move reunites Yardley with his former White & Case colleague Charlie Lightfoot, who is Jenner & Block’s London managing partner.

In South Africa, Bowmans has hired Nicolas Bonnefoy as a partner in its oil and gas sector. Bonnefoy, who will join the firm’s Johannesburg office, had previously been involved in acquisitions and disposals of oil and gas assets throughout Africa.

Previously of Ashurst, Bonnefoy said: ‘I am deeply impressed by the Oil and Gas team, which combines industry expertise, local teams in Africa, as well as African- and English-qualified solicitors. The oil & gas offering is therefore comprehensive and competitive.’

tom.baker@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Simmons, BLP and Reed Smith win places on Lloyds’ specialist roster as bank gears up for commercial panel review

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Adviser reviews Berwin Leighton PaisnerLloyds Banking GroupReed SmithSimmons & Simmons

Simmons & Simmons, Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP), Bond Dickinson and Reed Smith are among 24 firms to win a place on Lloyds Banking Group’s (LBG) specialist sub panel, which sits below the bank’s main core roster of eight firms.

It is understood that the firms on the specialist panel can be supported at times by the bank’s core firms on more specialist pieces of work. The bank’s core firms are: Addleshaw Goddard, Allen & Overy, Ashurst, CMS Cameron McKenna, Eversheds, Herbert Smith Freehills, Hogan Lovells and Linklaters.

In addition, firms are gearing up to pitch for Lloyds’ commercial banking panel, which is due to start shortly and is expected to include about 80 – 100 firms.

Speaking to Legal Business, one law firm partner said: ‘The main panel allows us to do work for pretty much everything. There are sub panels within the main panel and if you are appointed to the main panel you know which sub panels you are on. But then there are additional firms that are not on the main panel, which also get appointed to sub panels.

‘The banking pass through panel is different – it is much bigger and that process hasn’t started yet although it is due to start shortly.’

In a statement, a spokesperson from LBG said: ‘Following a rigorous and competitive tender process, the list of the group’s specialist legal panel was finalised in December 2016. The panel will include 24 firms which have been designated as specialist because they are able to offer services which are fully aligned to the needs of our group’s businesses. As previously announced, we will be announcing our specialist firms for our commercial banking division during the first half of 2017.’

LBG finalised its UK legal roster in October last year with DLA Piper and Norton Rose Fulbright losing their spots as the bank’s core panel shrunk from ten to eight firms.

kathryn.mcann@legalease.co.uk

Read more: ‘A buyer’s market – The trends and traumas in adviser reviews.’

Legal Business

Swings and roundabouts: A&O gains two in the US as former partners move to Simmons and Gibson Dunn

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Strategic recruitment Allen & OveryGibson, Dunn & CrutcherSimmons & Simmons

As it continues its push for US expansion, Allen & Overy (A&O) has appointed two partners to its investigations and litigation practice in Washington DC. Meanwhile, a former A&O partner who had retired has resurfaced at Simmons & Simmons, while a team of four moved to Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Paris this week.

Gregory Mocek and Anthony Mansfield join A&O’s Washington DC office from Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. The pair previously served in the Division of Enforcement of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission as the leader of its domestic and international investigations and litigation and its chief trial attorney respectively.

Mocek advises on a broad range of issues, including regulatory, government investigations, internal investigations, the Dodd-Frank Act, litigation, compliance, and operational risk. Mansfield is focused on commodities, securities and related derivatives litigation, complex commercial litigation and regulatory/enforcement matters.

However in the same week A&O has lost the head of its global technology group to Gibson Dunn. Ahmed Baladi joins the US firm with counsel Vera Lukic and associates Emmanuelle Bartoli and Adélaïde Cassanet. Baladi advises on issues relating to information technology and digital transactions, outsourcing, data privacy and cybersecurity. He joined A&O as an associate in 2001 and was made up to partner in 2010.

Simmons has also taken on former London based capital markets partner Jonathan Mellor. Mellor, who had retired at the end of last year, advises a wide range of underwriters and issuers on all types of capital markets issuance with a particular focus on the equity-linked market, building up a significant practice advising a range of issuers and financial institutions.

In November, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer also boosted its US platform with a Cadwalader hire in, taking corporate partner Aly El Hamamsy.

madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

‘Playing to our strengths’: Simmons posts 5% half-year revenue rise

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Financial results 2016/17 Simmons & Simmons
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Simmons & Simmons announced today (6 December) a 5% increase in half-year income, bringing in revenue of £149m in the first six months of the 2016/17 financial year, up from £142m this time last year.

Managing partner Jeremy Hoyland attributed the increase to practices such as disputes, life sciences and TMT which are all up from last year, as well as growth in corporate.

Hoyland (pictured) said: ‘Banking has been slower with not much activity seen on the borrowing side and real estate continues to have a tough time, albeit making a comeback. Geographically, France and the Middle East were our top performers.’

‘These are solid results given current market conditions and the uncertainty we have seen since Brexit. I’m pleased we are 5% up, and I continue to believe that playing to our strengths and continue to focus on these is the way forward. Firms that don’t identify their genuine strengths risk mediocrity,’ he added.

For financial year 2015/16 Simmons posted turnover up by 2% to hit a record £295.1m but partners suffered a sharp fall in profits as its cost base soared.

Growth slowed last year after a stronger year for the City stalwart in 2014/15, when revenue rose 8% to £290.1m and profits per equity partner (PEP) leapt 17% to £649,000.

In September this year, Simmons hired Ashurst’s Brussels office head Carl Meyntjens, whilst in the same month Magic Circle firm Allen & Overy hired a third and fourth intellectual property (IP) partner from Simmons.

Post-Brexit, the firm also made multiple redundancies in its banking and real estate practices, as real estate practices experienced a marked slowdown in transactions post 23 June vote.

Other LB 100 firms to post half year financials include Fieldfisher which posted a 10% revenue bump to £64.1m, while Allen & Overy posted a 14% rise on last year’s figures to £731m.

georgiana.tudor@legalease.co.uk

 

 

Legal Business

Simmons defends Barclays on former executive’s employment dispute

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Litigation Simmons & Simmons
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Simmons & Simmons has been gifted with a high-profile instruction defending Barclays as it faces an unfair dismissal dispute taken by a former top executive, who alleges he was sacked after investigators at the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) passed the bank a transcript of his interview with them.

Richard Boath, who until earlier this year was Barclays’ chairman of financial services, argued at a London employment tribunal yesterday (23 November) that he lost his job as a direct result of information he told the SFO which has a criminal investigation open against the bank.

The long-running investigation, which began in 2012, is scrutinising a £7.3bn emergency cash call made by Barclays at the height of the financial crisis when it avoided a taxpayer bailout by raising the money from investors in the Middle East.

Details about the claim made by Boath are scarce however he is reported to be making the case under whistleblower protection laws, according to a report in the Guardian. Reports suggest the potential damages is unlimited, unlike the £78,000 cap that applies to tribunals.

Barclays is represented by Simmons & Simmons partner Andrea Finn and Fountain Court Chambers heavyweight Richard Lissack QC and Blackstone Chambers’ star Paul Golding QC. Fountain Court junior barrister Eleanor Davison is also on the case.

Boath, who is currently a suspect in the SFO investigation, was interviewed under caution. For his employment tribunal claim, he is suing for lost pay and is represented by Howard Kennedy consultant Carolyn Brown, alongside Littleton Chambers’ duo Jonathan Cohen QC and Georgina Leadbetter.

The SFO has instructed QEB Hollis Whiteman’s Edward Brown QC, and 3 Verulam Buildings’ duo Matthew Parker and Theodore van Sante.

Barclays previously turned to Simmons for advice during a Financial Conduct Authority inquiry into deals for wealthy clients, which resulted in a £72m fine for the bank last November.

The FCA said Barclays ‘went to unacceptable lengths to accommodate’ a number of ‘ultra-high net worth clients’ in a £1.9bn deal arranged and executed by the bank during 2011 and 2012. The £72m penalty was the largest fine ever imposed by the FCA and its predecessor the FSA for financial crime failings at the time.

sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Simmons latest to benefit from KWM exits as German IP team quits

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Strategic recruitment King & Wood MallesonsSimmons & Simmons
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Simmons & Simmons announced today (16 November) the hire of King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) intellectual property (IP) partner Michael Knospe. He has joined Simmons’ Munich office together with counsel Caroline von Nussbaum and supervising associate Massimo Bellitto-Grillo.

Knospe joined SJ Berwin in 2010 and has a strong focus on trademarks and unfair competition and has experience across a number sectors, including TMT, consumer goods, life sciences and entertainment law. He spent the first 19 years of his career at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, before he joined Howrey in 2007.

Simmons IP head Rowan Freeland said: ‘Michael’s arrival is a real vote of confidence in the firm’s international intellectual property practice and his presence will strengthen both our intellectual property offering on the ground in Germany and our wider international practice.’

KWM’s European partnership has had a difficult run of late, and this week is considering a deal from the firm’s Asian arm for an internal bailout following the halt of recapitalisation talks last month. The European partnership is carrying more than £30m in debt.

The deal is subject to a vote, of which at least 70 out of about 120 partners must agree to. The partnership has until the week beginning 21 November to decide on the deal which includes a 12 month lock-in, a call for contributions from salaried partners of £60,000 and a guarantee that equity partners will receive at least £11,000 per equity point. This would mean the highest earning partner at KWM will have the ability to pocket £660,000 and the lowest earning equity partner £220,000.

For Simmons, the team hire into its IP practice follows a string of exits to Allen & Overy earlier this year. London partners Marjan Noor, Marc Döring, Mark Heaney and David Stone all announced this year they would exit Simmons for the Magic Circle firm.

georgiana.tudor@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

‘An integral part of our business in Asia’: Simmons launches joint venture with Singapore best friend

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Asia Simmons & Simmons
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Simmons & Simmons has announced a new joint law venture (JLV) in Singapore with local boutique JWS Asia Law. The new firm will be known as Simmons & Simmons JWS and will offer both foreign and local law advice as of today (1 November).

JWS, which was set up in 2015 by senior funds and regulatory lawyers from Singapore’s leading domestic practices, focuses on the financial institutions, asset management and investment funds sectors in Singapore and is led by three partners Jek-Aun Long, Mohammed Reza and Calvin Tan.

The move takes Simmons’ Singapore practice up to eight partners. In April, the firm hired Dentons’ former Singapore managing partner and financial markets specialist Matthew Cox, after Dentons shut down its own office in the city state in the wake of its merger with Chinese firm Dacheng.

Commenting on the JLV, managing partner Jeremy Hoyland said: ‘Simmons & Simmons JWS will form an integral part of our business in Asia alongside our offices in Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and Tokyo, and will work closely with our lawyers from right across our network.

‘Given Singapore’s increasing importance as a commodities, asset management and financial institution hub, we are excited about the opportunities this brings to further expand our leading practices in each of these areas.’

Recent activity by UK-based firms in Singapore has picked up considerably. Earlier this year, Reed Smith’s 20 -lawyer Singapore office, which opened in 2012 to support clients in the energy and natural resources sector, also entered into a formal alliance with local firm Resource Law, giving the firm the capability to practise Singapore law for the first time. Osborne Clarke also expanded its south-east Asia presence in August through its association with new Singaporean firm OC Queen Street with an initial focus on clients in the digital and fintech sectors.

Simmons’ turnover was up by 2% in 2015/16 to hit a record £295.1m, with net profit decreasing 6% to £88.8m, while PEP dropped from £600,000 to £585,000.

georgiana.tudor@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Fintech boost: Simmons picks first recipients of free legal advice

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Finance Simmons & Simmons
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Simmons & Simmons has announced credit-investment platform Alterest Investment Technologies, hourly car-insurance provider Cuvva, banking platform RailBank and invoicing firm Tallysticks as the first four recipients of free legal advice through its new fintech fund.

Launched in May this year, the fund is the first of its kind in the UK to commit a maximum of £25,000 per year, per start-up, of legal advice designed to help promising fintech businesses at an early stage. The fund was created and is led by head of the firm’s fintech team Angus McLean.

McLean said: ‘Fintech businesses are pretty sophisticated compared to previous tech businesses, so they deal with much more complicated regulatory issues even before they’re established.’

‘For these start-ups, the fintech fund could make a real difference, or could even be what gets them off the ground; and it’s through this support that we hope to make a significant contribution to the wider fintech community.’ he added.

The firm is yet to provide further details on each of the businesses’ plans in relation to the fund, but Simmons will provide a maximum of £100,000 per year across the four start-ups.

To qualify for support through the fund, fintech businesses had to have received no more than £1m of investment and been accepted onto one of the leading UK fintech accelerator programmes or been referred to Simmons by an established fintech-focused venture capital investor.

An Accenture report from April shows global fintech investment in 2015 grew 75%, or $9.6bn, to $22.3bn in 2015. The creation of the fund and announcement of beneficiaries signifies Simmons’ commitment to the hottest sector in technology, which is predicted to hit $46bn globally by 2020.

georgiana.tudor@legalease.co.uk