Every cloud has a silver lining and all that. The Diary was chatting to a Linklaters source the other day when the subject of the firm’s failure to bring Dutch ally De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek into the fold came up.

The source commented on the irony of a firm that specialises in M&A taking more than three years to try to merge two organisations and then failing.
The mole added as an aside: “But can you imagine the legal fees for three years’ worth of due diligence?”