Features
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Offshore: Wait and see
By Legal Week | June 22, 2010
Arguably, far too much has already been written about the European Union's Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive. Some of it, though, has been of great help to the industry. Awareness of the potential problems posed by some of the earlier drafts has helped to rein in at least a few of the excesses. Less helpful has been the plethora of advisers keen to claim that they have the answer to all of your structuring needs, despite the fact that at the time of writing we are still not at a point at which we can say with certainty where the directive will end up. New jurisdictions have even offered to solve problems that have not yet been posed.
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US briefing: The Google slayers
By Legal Week | May 19, 2010
When Charles 'Rick' Rule of Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft talks about his crusade against Google, he sounds very self-assured: "We've got an opening and others who want to follow us into that opening - we're here to help. If you look at the last five years, Google ran roughshod over companies without facing significant pushback. Now they're facing counsel that have figured out the algorithm to go against them." Rule, is a former head of the US Department of Justice's antitrust division during the Reagan administration. As the head of Cadwalader's antitrust practice in Washington DC, he was counsel for Microsoft in its three-year antitrust battle with the US Government. Now he is part of a small army of private lawyers and public agencies taking aim at the internet behemoth Google.
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The Am Law 100: Holy non-equity partners!
By Legal Week | May 19, 2010
Last year, as law firms struggled with the brutal realities of the recession, many managing partners took the tried-and-true approach to cutting costs - layoffs. For The Am Law 100, the hardest hit were the junior associates - as equity partners merely saw their numbers flatten out. Next in line, theoretically, should have been the non-equity partners. This vulnerable group includes fresh lateral recruits; young lawyers caught in the limbo between senior associate and equity partner; equity partners who have lost their equity status - the dreaded de-equitisation; senior equity partners eyeing retirement; and service partners with a slim (or non-existent) book of business.
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Africa: Digging for resolutions
By Legal Week | May 11, 2010
There is a discernible mood of cautious optimism among stakeholders in South Africa's mining industry after certain encouraging developments in March 2010. First, during his visit to the UK, President Jacob Zuma went out of his way to reassure international investors that the Government has no intention of nationalising the country's mining industry. Then, at a high-level mining summit held in South Africa, business, labour and Government sat down together to debate the challenges facing the mining industry. The backdrop to the mining summit was longstanding uncertainty over regulatory changes affecting the mining industry, such as the new regulations accompanying the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA). Another sticking point has been confusion over the empowerment implications for the mining industry of the most recently published Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) Codes of Good Practice, versus the older Mining Charter and Scorecard.
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Austria: Protect what's yours
By Legal Week | March 24, 2010
Christian Schumacher, Michael Horak and Sascha Salomonowitz say Austria's strong IP enforcement makes the country one of the best for trying patent infringement cases
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Banking and finance: Starting forward again
By Legal Week | January 27, 2010
Despite predictions that the green shoots of recovery from the liquidity crisis are growing, most financial institutions remain under pressure to increase capital reserves and clean up their balance sheets. The limited availability of financing is affecting all corporate borrowers, irrespective of their ability to comply with the terms of existing financial arrangements. While over-leveraged borrowers continue to negotiate waivers and covenant suspensions, healthier borrowers are facing the growing fear that lenders will be unable to refinance existing facilities on maturity.
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Legal adviser rankings: 2009 year end
By Legal Week | January 14, 2010
Full details of Mergermarket's European deal rankings for 2009...
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Media and sport: Sportsgate
By Legal Week | December 8, 2009
In their 2005 book Freakonomics, economists Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner argued that sumo wrestling, that most noble and ancient Japanese sport, was riddled with corruption. They analysed data from 32,000 bouts over 11 years and controversially concluded that a significant number of those bouts had been rigged, with one wrestler having agreed to 'tank' or take a dive to let his opponent win (in return for a reciprocal gesture at their next meeting).
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Africa: Cartel combat
By Legal Week | December 1, 2009
Since its inception the Competition Act No 89 of 1998 has proved to be a formidable force in combating anti-competitive behaviour in South Africa. In the last year the Competition Authorities have rigorously applied the Act to fight cartel activity, particularly in the construction and fertiliser industries. 2009 has seen some of the largest fines imposed on companies found guilty of participating in cartels. The last year has also seen the enactment of the Competition Amendment Act, the commencement of which has yet to be announced and has severe consequences for directors and managers of companies found to have participated in a cartel.
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Restructuring and insolvency: The clean-up crew
By Legal Week | November 25, 2009
With debt hard to come by in the post-crunch age, the current restructuring and insolvency market is, according to the Blackstone Group's Martin Gudgeon, rapidly changing. He comments: "[We have] moved from resolving liquidity crises of cash-starved businesses to resolving poor investment returns of over-leveraged businesses. And now we [are] heading into resolving prospective refinancing hurdles."
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