Austrian law regards directors and officers as fiduciaries of their respective company (or rather: its shareholders). This is because, as a basic principle, executives do not usually manage their own assets but rather assets belonging to third parties.
It has been ten years since the Legal Services Act gained Royal Assent, ushering in the most liberal services market in the world by some margin. Given that span of time, and the five years since the most radical elements of the act came into force with the regime for alternative business structures (ABS), it …
Continue reading “The Legal Services Act ten years on – still waiting for the Big Bang”
The discovery of serious criminal conduct within an organisation can be catastrophic and at the very least present a major distraction from the company’s core business.
National Grid renews roster National Grid, which carried out its last full panel review in 2015, has reappointed 12 firms to its roster including Norton Rose Fulbright, Addleshaw Goddard, Irwin Mitchell and Herbert Smith Freehills. These firms, which were newly appointed in 2015, join CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang, DLA Piper, Eversheds Sutherland, Linklaters, Berwin …
Today, it is a question of when and not if a cyber security breach will occur in your business. Every organisation needs to be aware of the risks and how to react when a breach occurs.
Unusually for the current UK and Ireland general counsel of Swiss multinational and famed KitKat creator Nestlé, Mark Maurice-Jones’ career started in teaching. Armed with a chemical engineering degree from the University of Cambridge that he was unsure how to utilise, Maurice-Jones opted for a year-and-a-half-long stint in Hong Kong teaching maths, physics and chemistry. …
Internal investigations and public enforcement actions pose significant legal challenges for companies. The inherent multidisciplinary nature of the most frequent issues, which requires an in-depth knowledge not only of the laws and regulations of the relevant industry, but also of criminal, corporate, contract, data protection and labour law (often in more than one jurisdiction), increases …
Continue reading “Internal investigations and public enforcement: challenges under Italian law”
Look out law schools, there is a disrupter in town. Naturally, that town is Silicon Valley, the home of innovation. And the innovator in question is University of California Berkeley, which includes a leading US law school, renowned for its prowess in technology and IP.
In recent years the size of the administrative fines imposed by the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) in enforcement cases has significantly increased. This article gives an overview of the CBI’s enforcement regime, including the compulsory information gathering-powers that the CBI has at its disposal and the scenarios in which these powers could be used …
Continue reading “Regulatory investigations by the Central Bank of Ireland”
A key session of the Commercial Litigation Summit tackled aspects of global investigations from an in-house and external adviser perspective. Clifford Chance partner Judith Seddon began by looking at deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) and self-reporting. She posed the question: ‘How effective are DPAs in changing corporate behaviour? From a corporate-governance perspective, does the failure-to-prevent offence …
Kate McMahon and, Tamlyn Edmonds of Edmonds Marshall McMahon discuss their approach to white-collar crime investigation and the unique role that specialist firms can play.
During Apple’s earnings conference call in May, chief executive Tim Cook discussed the company’s long-running and bitter dispute with Qualcomm, a company that manufactures internal components for the iPhone.