Ashurst and Slaughter and May have won lead roles advising on the Royal Bank of Scotland’s (RBS) sale of its overseas private banking and wealth management business to Union Bancaire Privée (UBP).
In-house: Barclays’ Asia GC set for EME investment bank role following Handling’s departure
Barclays has appointed Simon Croxford as general counsel (GC) for Investment Banking for the Europe and Middle East region (EME) following the departure of Erica Handling.
Senior appointments: Linklaters picks successor to top finance job as Jim Rice prepares to step down
Linklaters has appointed longstanding partner and global financial regulation group head Michael Kent as divisional practice head of finance & projects, where he will succeed heavyweight finance and securitisation partner Jim Rice.
JP Morgan
- General counsel: Stephen Cutler.
- EMEA general counsel: John Tribolati.
- Team headcount: 115 lawyers in London.
JP Morgan remains one of the most coveted and lucrative legal clients in the world. From transactional, regulatory and compliance instructions, and a legal expense bill that totalled more than $1.1bn in the fourth quarter of 2014 alone as a result of major government probes, law firms are chomping at the bit for business. But aside from size, JP Morgan’s legal team has long been admired for its technical polish and pragmatic approach.
JP Morgan’s strategic investment in its legal function was evident with the hire of Piers Le Marchant from Nomura last April as its EMEA GC.
Le Marchant has moved into the role of global head of compliance for corporate and investment banking, with JP Morgan last month recruiting prominent Goldman Sachs counsel John Tribolati as its new regional legal head.
Tribolati has moved to one of the world’s largest investment houses at a time when JP Morgan faces intense scrutiny from regulators. In 2013 it paid out nearly $20bn in settlements to regulators, while in 2014 the bank was one of a dozen facing a global investigation into whether traders colluded to manipulate the estimated $5.3trn-a-day Forex market.
Major corporate work last year saw JP Morgan club together with Barclays and Morgan Stanley to arrange £6.6bn in loans for BSkyB to take full control of Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland, while its work on Liberty Global’s purchase of Germany’s third-largest cable TV operator KBW from EQT was cited by market commentators as one of the most innovative acquisition financings in recent years.
The EMEA team is described by Allen & Overy finance partner Sally Onions as ‘not just focused on deal management but is also interested in shaping the future of the market’.
In particular, legal counsel Liz Tippins, a former Allen & Overy lawyer, is described as ‘very pragmatic and efficient in her approach’ and ‘interested in wider market developments’, while other notable names include executive director and assistant GC, Emma Smith, an employment law specialist who joined from Old Square Chambers in September; and dual-qualified Simone Paul, also executive director and assistant GC, who serves in the derivatives legal department. Paul also previously served as investment compliance manager at Citibank followed by a six-year run at State Street Bank’s global markets legal department. The team also includes high-profile associate GC Tim Hailes.
The Royal Bank of Scotland
- Group general counsel: John Collins.
- Team headcount: 400 lawyers.
It has undoubtedly been a difficult few years at The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) but the bank’s former group GC, Chris Campbell, maintains that
the work the team has done stands above any other bank in the UK. ‘The world and his dog are aware of the difficulties RBS has had over the last few years
and most of these involved the legal team,’ says Campbell. ‘We have had some enormously complex and innovative legal issues – enforcements, regulatory matters, litigations and disposals.’
And for all the challenges facing the bank, RBS has sustained its reputation for having a robust team with a strong bench of highly capable lawyers. Prominent figures in the team include the astute head of litigation William Luker and senior counsel M&A/corporate Scott Gibson, who was cited in our 2014 Rising Stars report.
Major recent mandates include The Citizens Bank listing on the New York stock exchange, which in September last year raised $3bn in an initial public offering, as well as a £1bn sell-off of the majority of its remaining stake in Direct Line insurance. Following its £20bn government bailout in 2008, the British banking giant is also fighting off two large claims: one involving an action against the bank’s former chief executive Fred Goodwin relating to a rights issue in April 2008, and the other comprising a group of 313 claimants across a number of UK and international financial institutions and pension funds.
Praising the team on its performance, Alan Nelson, an IT partner at CMS says: ‘Amid a turbulent time for the bank, this team has embraced the challenges it faced. It has sought to realise greater value from its panel and deliver better services to its internal clients. It has greatly improved its stakeholder relations, which will make the legal team a far more integral part of the bank.’
Bank of America Merrill Lynch
- Global general counsel: Gary Lynch.
- Team headcount: 120 lawyers in EMEA.
Supporting Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML)’s entry into the GC Power List 2015, Aviva’s group GC Kirsty Cooper observes: ‘Financial services breed strong teams because of the volatile nature of that industry over the last few years. People have to be innovative, resilient and stand up and be counted. It’s not been the easiest industry to work in but it has brought out the best people working there.’
This is certainly true for the in-house legal team at BAML, particularly since Bank of America (BoA)’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch at the height of the financial crisis in a $50bn deal in 2008. Major matters for the legal department in 2014 include a $16.6bn settlement with the US Department of Justice, federal agencies and six US states – the largest civil settlement with a single entity in American history. The bank agreed to pay the sum after longstanding federal and state allegations that BoA and its former and current subsidiaries, including Countrywide Financial Corporation and Merrill Lynch, sold mortgage-backed securities to investors that contributed to the real estate market collapse amid the 2008 economic downturn.
The team instructs international law firms, including Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance, Shearman & Sterling and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and key lawyers in the EMEA region include Sajid Hussein, EMEA GC, and Andrew Bird, head of EMEA corporate and investment banking legal.
One partner at a New York-headquartered law firm praised BAML’s London loans team in particular for its talent and dedication. ‘BAML has reorganised its legal function to give the team more responsibility so that they deal with all loan products worldwide for the whole of BAML, save in the Americas, which has a very large territorial reach and combination of time zones. The team runs very efficiently and we find them excellent to deal with. The individuals are real team players. They also participate in various pro bono activities and diversity matters, and many of the team are working mothers.’
Deutsche Bank
- Group general counsel: Richard Walker.
- General counsel for the UK and western Europe: Emma Slatter.
- Team headcount: 100 lawyers in London, 600 globally.
In common with many global financial institutions, Deutsche Bank has been at the centre of the regulatory cyclone for years and its 100-strong London legal team has played an instrumental role in tightening the investment bank’s governance, liaising with regulators and running high-stakes, post-Lehman litigation.
Under the leadership of GC for the UK and western Europe, Emma Slatter, the team has set up a new legal risk management function, which works with all areas of Deutsche Bank’s legal team and oversees the bank’s legal risk control framework. The banking group’s European legal team has had a reputation as a progressive and proactive operation dating back to Slatter’s well-regarded predecessor, Simon Dodds.
Further innovation includes rolling out a forward-looking legal risk assessment programme across all the bank’s businesses. The team is working closely with the government on regulatory affairs, with a legal team at Deutsche Bank at the vanguard of its lobbying activities.
Post-Lehman cases include a Court of Appeal ruling in 2014 that investment fund Sebastian Holdings must pay Deutsche Bank $243m, after the High Court threw out an $8bn compensation claim against the bank. Over the last 12 months, the litigation and regulatory team has grown by 50%.
Slatter comments: ‘It’s great when you do succeed but the outcome isn’t necessarily in the hands of the lawyers. It’s nice to highlight success but equally the team might do an outstanding job and just don’t get the result.’
Bringing lawyers and consultants ‘under the same roof’: Eversheds launches financial services consulting arm
Eversheds has expanded its consulting services business, Eversheds Consulting, with the launch of a financial services regulatory compliance offering, and recruited six senior consultants and a team of compliance contractors, including Jean-Paul Simoes and Jonathan Steward from EY and KPMG respectively.
Q&A: Heath Tarbert, US banking partner at A&O, talks competing for regulatory work and if US regulators are setting the pace
A year on from his move to Allen & Overy (A&O) from Weil, Gotshal & Manges, US bank regulatory head Heath Tarbert talks to Jaishree Kalia about the expanding influence of US regulators and why it’s easier for Magic Circle firms to compete for regulatory work.
The Friday Edit: New year, new partners and a new world order in finance
Happy New Year and welcome to the first Friday Edit of 2015, our weekly review of the top stories to emerge from Law Land over the past five days. Click here for full access to Legal Business or email mark.proudley@legalease.co.uk for more information. Corporate subscribers can also access our premium reporting firm-wide online and via our iPad edition as well as print copies.
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