Working at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) wouldn’t suit every lawyer. If you yearn for walls spotted by Damien Hirst, encrusted with crackly oils of senior partners from days of yore or plastered with impassioned corporate values, you’d be disappointed. Desks groaning with gonks, or festooned with file boxes or framed pictures of you losing your lunch on the Corkscrew? Colour, of any kind? Ha, you wish. The overall effect is a little, er, Spartan.
A fundamental principle for multi-national companies is compliance with the law of all nations where they do business. But a recurrent dilemma is what to do when a corporation’s global ethical standards (‘oppose censorship’ for a global media company) collides with national law (China’s extensive state censorship). As companies globalize and nations regulate ever more, this vexatious problem is not esoteric, but recurring. Most companies make voluntary decisions to adopt ethical standards beyond what formal legal and financial rules mandate. A decision that a company’s global ethical standards conflict with national law raises a range of options: obey the law; be civilly disobedient (a very uncomfortable, often untenable, position for global companies dedicated to rule of law); try to change the law; or stop doing business in that nation. Continue reading “The conflict between a corporation’s global standards and national law”
Gregory Bopp – Managing partner, Bracewell LLP
David DeVeau – General counsel, Kinder Morgan Inc.
Jeffrey Kaplan – General counsel, LyondellBasell
Susan Lindberg – General counsel, Eni US Operating Co.
Inc. and head of the Americas Region legal department of Italian-based Eni SpA
Catherine McGregor – GC Magazine
What is considered important professional ‘news’ for an in-house lawyer? Sure, many will see the changing legal landscape as news, scanning diligently the usual array of legal industry journals on a daily basis. But what other sources do you use to gather your news from? For that matter, what even is news? Continue reading “Who do you need to be?”
Hogan Lovells has hired former DLA Piper director Stephen Allen following his exit from the firm in March this year. Continue reading “DLA innovator Stephen Allen resurfaces at Hogan Lovells”
One of the legal industry’s longest-standing leaders and regular GC Powerlist member Robert Ivens has retired from his role at Marks & Spencer, after first joining in 1985 and becoming head of legal in 1989.
Following the news yesterday (20 August) that Proskauer Rose had hired from Dentons‘ private equity practice, the firm has lost two partners , one to Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in private equity, and another in private investment funds to Morrison & Foerster (MoFo).
Continue reading “MoFo and Gibson Dunn take a partner each from Proskauer’s City practice”
It really does have it all, yesterday’s Apple story. But you don’t want to read 5,000 words and I don’t want to write them. So let me focus on the bits I think are interesting or important.
Continue reading “Guest post: The Apple story – a wider perspective”
Clifford Chance (CC) has tapped King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) for its highly-regarded Germany head of funds Sonya Pauls.
Continue reading “Top KWM funds partner exits for Clifford Chance in Germany”
With international law firms intent on carving up pricey mandates so that chunks can be processed more mechanically by cheaper teams, Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) has become the first Western firm to open an alternative legal services hub in China. Continue reading “Shanghai savings: HSF first Western firm to open alternative legal services hub in China”
The veteran corporate lawyer on memorable moments in deal making and untangling himself from Barclays
‘It was ambition that made me decide to leave Barclays,’ declares self-confessed deal junkie Michael Shaw, who resigned from his role as the bank’s deputy general counsel (GC) in the summer of 2015.
Continue reading “Client profile: Michael Shaw, The Royal Bank of Scotland”
As a nation well versed in referenda, Ireland is in tune with the times. Since 1937 and the creation of Bunreacht na hÉireann as the fundamental law of Ireland, there have been 35 referenda on everything from a change in the country’s single transferable vote system to the controversial right to life of the unborn.
Ireland has had its own problems with votes on the European Union (EU), throwing Europe into chaos when the country held a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in 2008 and it was rejected by 53% of voters. A vote was held again in 2009, and the Irish had a change of heart – the treaty was then backed by 67% of the population. Continue reading “Ireland: Will there be greener grass for booming Dublin in the post-Brexit world?”
Leisure company Merlin Entertainments has kicked off its first ever formal panel review in a process overseen by new general counsel Matt Jowett.
Continue reading “In-house: New Merlin Entertainments GC launches first-ever formal panel”
Two leaders in Dentons‘ private equity practice in the City have quit the firm, with Igor Krivoshekov departing for Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and Eleanor Shanks set to join Proskauer Rose.
Continue reading “Akin Gump and Proskauer pick apart Dentons’ City private equity team”
A post-Brexit landscape poses many legal hurdles for corporates operating within the UK. Legal Business asks senior in-house counsel how they plan to navigate the uncertainty
Having seen Legal & General’s shares initially tumble on the Friday morning immediately after the UK’s vote to leave the EU – like so many financial services businesses – general counsel (GC) Geoffrey Timms is concerned that the business impact of Brexit could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. ‘Markets are emotional rather than factual. We can talk ourselves into trouble. There’s this end-of-the-world view online. Britain is still in a good place. Yes, the government has to fight uncertainty, but so does Europe. One hopes common sense will prevail.’
Continue reading “The new order – the first response for GCs to the post-Brexit environment”
US hires were on the cards for Baker & McKenzie and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, while Withers added in Hong Kong and telecoms firm Altice USA turned to Shearman & Sterling for its new general counsel.
Legal Business caught up with Allen & Overy’s (A&O) new global co-head of leveraged finance, Scott Zemser. Continue reading “Q&A: Allen & Overy’s Scott Zemser talks leveraged finance, lockstep and competing in the US”
City lawyers have taken a handsome share of the $1.94bn in advisory fees generated by Anheuser-Busch InBev’s (AB InBev) $108bn takeover of SABMiller, with law firms receiving $261m in fees from the biggest deal in British corporate history.
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Baker Botts have won spots advising as CVC Capital Partners looks to sell off Formula One (F1) to Liberty Media Corporation for £6.4bn.
Continue reading “Freshfields and Baker Botts steer CVC and Liberty through £6.4bn Formula One deal”
Allen & Overy has boosted its Asian offering with partner Stephen Miller moving from London to Hong Kong to take on the newly-created role of head of Asia capital markets.
