Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer was in the headlines and under the cosh last week, with two of its most famous names – UK corporate chief Tim Jones and former head of corporate Barry O’Brien – incurring the wrath of the ever-vigilant Law Society for their part in the Marks & Spencer conflicts furore, just years after it all actually happened (or didn’t happen, depending on your point of view).
The firm and decisive action represents an impressive turnaround for the famously agile body, which recently explained its failure to respond to a Government consultation on the future of class actions in the UK on the entirely reasonable grounds that an annual budget of just £100m means it “cannot respond to everything”.
