Legal Business

RBS investors secure litigation funding for action against bank

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Third-party funder Argentum has agreed to bankroll a multimillion-pound claim against The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) in London’s High Court.

The floodgates have opened for cases against RBS following its £20bn government bailout in 2008, as investors seek to recoup their losses following its nationalisation.

The group of 21 claimants includes a number of UK and international financial institutions and pension funds suing the bank over 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.

Legal Business

Leonie Fleming – RBS Group

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Leonie Fleming

General counsel for corporate Banking, global restructuring group and Ulster Bank

RBS Group

 

One law banking partner says that Leonie Fleming ‘falls into the “very influential” bracket due to her position, but also the “up and coming bracket”, because I feel she has further to go at RBS’. There’s no doubt that she has won praise for her adroit handling of complex regulatory issues during a difficult few years for the bank.

Legal Business

Shaw abruptly steps down from Dundas leadership

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Dundas & Wilson’s managing partner Donald Shaw unexpectedly announced in March that he is stepping down from his post midway through his second term.

It is unclear why Shaw stepped down, however suggestions from former partners and the market are that partners were unhappy with his management.

Legal Business

Addressing partner underperformance

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James Tsolakis of The Royal Bank of Scotland published his annual report, A perspective on the legal market, in March. In it, he says UK firms have 5% overcapacity in fee-earner resources and has told LB that firms need to address this issue at partner level. The report also says that the success of new partner compensation models that align compensation with performance depends on ‘effective partner appraisal systems’.

Legal Business

Kop Kings – Liverpool FC

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From the fields of Anfield Road to the offices on Bunhill Row, the takeover of Liverpool Football Club was played out in the full glare of the courts and the press. Legal Business talks to the key legal players

When John William Henry II descended the curving flight of stairs into the cool, inconspicuous client reception at Slaughter and May’s offices on Bunhill Row on the afternoon of 15 October 2010, he was met by an unusual sight. As the threshold of a law firm that has long prided itself on its understated manner, it’s usually exceptionally quiet. But that afternoon there was little evidence of calm: pandemonium had taken hold.