Two of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s lawyers have set up an IP/IT specialist boutique in Spain following the closure of the firm’s Barcelona office in April this year.
Dentons picks up partner as Chadbourne closes Kiev office
Chadbourne & Parke’s Adam Mycyk has moved to Dentons following Chadbourne’s decision to close its Kiev office.
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Morrison & Foerster appoints Paul Friedman to newly-created European managing partner role
Paul Friedman has become Morrison & Foerster’s first managing partner for Europe, overseeing 26 partners and 43 associates across London, Berlin and Brussels.
The securities and white-collar litigator has 32 years under his belt at the top 30 Global 100 firm, including 28 years as a partner, and will relocate from San Francisco to London to assume the role. Continue reading “Morrison & Foerster appoints Paul Friedman to newly-created European managing partner role”
Hogan Lovells second global firm to exit Prague in a month
Transatlantic firm Hogan Lovells has become the second top-ten Legal Business 100 firm in recent weeks to announce it is withdrawing from Prague, blaming difficult market conditions.
Following a ‘strategic review of the market’ undertaken by the international management committee, the firm is aiming to complete its exit from Prague over the summer, with the exact date still to be decided.
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Portugal – A New Hope
Portugal’s European bailout is over and its privatisation programme is winding down. Legal Business asks the country’s lawyers what happens next.
While the instances in which Europe’s ailing economies have been talking up their prospects have been as frequent as rain storms this past year, Portugal has more reason than most to be bullish. It exited the European Union (EU)/International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout programme at the end of last month; activity levels and employment figures are exceeding expectations; and the government aims to reduce the budget gap further in 2015.
Hogan Lovells second top 10 firm to exit Prague in under a month
Transatlantic firm Hogan Lovells has become the second top ten LB 100 firm in recent weeks to announce it is withdrawing from Prague, blaming difficult market conditions. Continue reading “Hogan Lovells second top 10 firm to exit Prague in under a month”
Sliding doors: Norton Rose Fulbright exits Prague; Kirkland launches in Houston
In the same week as Kirkland & Ellis announced it is opening in Houston, top 10 LB100 firm Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) has confirmed it is withdrawing from the Prague market, closing its local office due to ‘difficult market’ conditions with effect from 1 May. Continue reading “Sliding doors: Norton Rose Fulbright exits Prague; Kirkland launches in Houston”
Global London – Part of the game
It’s been a challenging period for European firms, but a growing band of players see a substantive City presence as core to their future prospects
Top-tier French outfit Gide Loyrette Nouel is the only continental European firm ever to have made our list of the 50 largest foreign firms in London and its fortunes in the Capital in recent years tell the story of many international firms post-Lehman. In 2008, it had 45 lawyers in the City. By 2013, this had fallen to 34. This is against a backdrop of poor financial performance in recent years, with turnover dropping 30% from £7.8m to £5.5m in the 2011/12 financial year, alongside a gross profit drop of 63% from £3.8m to £1.4m.
Making bail – getting Cyprus back on its feet
A year ago Cyprus was heading for disaster. The banking crisis had hit hard and predictions of where it would leave the country ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. Hyperbolic headlines screamed that Cyprus would be forced to quit the eurozone and that everybody would be out of a job. Foreign investors would leave in droves, said the naysayers, so the island had better just go back to fishing and tourism as its mainstay.
Thankfully for the majority, and certainly for the Cyprus legal community, such prophecies have proved overdone. Depending on who you speak to there is really only a mix of cautious or, for some, more courageous optimism about where the Cypriot economy is headed and the benefits that will be realised in the next couple of years by its advisers.
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A wider horizon – Switzerland edges into the global economy
While historically relatively untouched by the globalisation of legal services, international firms have continued their recent surge into Switzerland, with Geneva – home to a third of the world’s private wealth – emerging as the most popular hotspot. As recently as January, CMS von Erlach Henrici – the local Swiss member of the global CMS network – merged with Geneva practice ZPG Avocats, adding six partners, including former ZPG managing partner Charles Poncet to the firm, now known as CMS von Erlach Poncet.
In September last year, Speechly Bircham also opened in Geneva – an office led by Michael Wells-Greco and of counsel Francis Rojas, who joined from the Luxembourg-based Maitland. This was the LB100 firm’s second office launch in the country in recent years, having first launched in Zürich in 2011. Continue reading “A wider horizon – Switzerland edges into the global economy”