I hadn’t meant to return to the scorched-earth territory of Hogan Lovells again this quickly, but several posts on the subject this week got me thinking. In particular, some readers have argued that, since the proposed union will involve two profit centres, that it isn’t a ‘real’ merger. This argument puts the deal unfavourably in the camp of DLA Piper, which has been criticised in some circles for a lack of integration between the US and UK/international practices.
Well, from what I can tell, the model for Hogan Lovells is more integrated than that used by DLA Piper. There would be genuine firmwide governance and partner remuneration would be aligned on a firmwide basis. And, personally, I’d say the line of argument that anything other than a single profit centre equates to being McDonald’s is getting stale. No-one says that about KPMG or Deloitte, and many of the best-known corporate brands in the world are actually collections of multiple legal entities and profit centres. Would Hogan Lovells be a genuine merger? I would say it was, and the managing partners at rival firms I’ve discussed the deal with this week take the same view.
