Significant matters – Summer 2021

Feature

New role for Booth at Crown Estate Rob Booth, one of the leading lights of the in-house legal community, will be stepping away from his position as general counsel and company secretary at The Crown Estate to become the company’s new head of assets.

Ahmed Badr – GoCardless

Feature

Ahmed Badr did not want to be a lawyer. A self-professed ‘huge geek’ at school, he was never happier than when sat a computer doing some programming or web design. ‘You would never find me playing football,’ he reflects.

Anthony Kenny – GSK

Feature

The In-House Lawyer (IHL): Can you describe your career path so far and tell us a little bit about your current role at GSK?

Compliance programmes and the protection of legal privilege | Steptoe & Johnson

Legal Briefing

In recent years, financial crime prosecutors have sought to encourage companies to establish compliance programmes designed to avoid – or at least detect – illegal conduct, by including the requirement as a precondition to their securing a reduced penalty, or other form of leniency, following a compliance incident. In responding to those incentives by implementing …

Arrested development

Feature

The legal industry is still fragmenting. Pre-2008 it was an easier game: a buoyant economy, predictable government and a converging world flattened by globalisation and the internet. Law firms sought to be ‘global’ and ‘full-service’ and merged or opened offices accordingly. The business model was simple: bigger clients, bigger teams, higher utilisation, higher rates. Hold …

Moving ethnicity pay gap evaluation from the ‘too difficult’ pile | Eversheds Sutherland

Legal Briefing

Against a backdrop of Government expressions of support for ethnicity pay reporting in the UK in 2018 and a consultation paper which appeared to favour some form of Government intervention, the lack of any legislative proposals since had been perceived by some as a sign of waning commitment. Immediate reaction to the independent Government Commission …

The Russian M&A market since the outbreak of the global pandemic | VK Partners

Legal Briefing

Economic environment overview The Russian economy was greatly affected by the global epidemic and the decline in business activity. Economic performance was influenced by the OPEC+ oil pact, the drop in oil prices and the volatility in the dollar exchange rate. However, those difficulties were overcome relatively well, since the government implemented support measures to …

Healthy competition

Feature

When discussing the current direction of antitrust regulation, Carles Esteva Mosso, a partner in the competition practice at Latham & Watkins’ Brussels office puts it succinctly: ‘In Europe, we are seeing an evolution towards more intense merger enforcement.’ At a national level, many jurisdictions appear to be keen to occupy a role at the forefront …

Spotlight on Germany – the new Digitalization Act | Latham & Watkins

Legal Briefing

With its enactment of the new German Digitalization Act (GWB10) on 19 January 2021, Germany became one of the first countries to upgrade its statutory toolbox to tackle the (perceived) market power of digital giants. The most prominent tools aim to address behavioural and structural market deficiencies (paras 19(1a), 20(3a)) and ease data access (paras …