As Donald Trump once said, ‘real estate is always good’. Nearly $700bn changed hands in the commercial real estate market last year, proving that in times of uncertainty the safe money is on bricks and mortar. Brexit aside, London was seen as the safest bet of all, attracting over $23bn of new investment – $10bn more than New York.
Continue reading “Real estate of the union”

What are some of the main market trends which are influencing the work flow of your real estate practice in the UK?
Don Rowlands, Head of Real Estate, UK & EMEA

The real estate market in the UK and in other key investment hotspots around the world is proving resilient in the face of economic and political uncertainties. An ever increasing range of organisations from across the globe are looking to participate – from US private equity funds, to Australian superannuation schemes, to Asian pension funds and Hong Kong investors. Global capital is particularly attracted to the UK because of the strong legal and regulatory framework, transaction transparency and the relative ease of doing business – as well as the reputation of UK real estate for holding value, and just a bit of post-Brexit currency arbitrage!

Continue reading “Herbert Smith Freehills on real estate”

You wouldn’t mistake a lawyer for a designer. One is usually armed with a pen and a rulebook, the other with a Mac and a black turtleneck. Right? Wrong.

Continue reading “Back to the drawing board”

For UK business, 2018 will be dominated by one question: when do we push the button on Brexit? Months of scenario planning have given a sense of the possible outcomes, but there is little confidence that a decision will be taken in full possession of the facts.

Continue reading “The edge of the cliff”

Late last year, The In-House Lawyer ventured north of the border to highlight the community of commercial counsel flourishing in Scotland in an extended feature. To follow up, this autumn we teamed up with Addleshaw Goddard to gather a panel of senior general counsel at Edinburgh’s Signet Library in Parliament Square to debate a range of related issues to an audience of over 60 in-house counsel. With Brexit on the agenda, a changing legal profession and Scotland’s economy striving to reinvent itself for an increasingly-globalised age, there was plenty to talk about.

Continue reading “Northern exposure”

A decade ago workplace law was barely on a general counsel’s risk register. Today we see in-house lawyers specialising in it – with a GC expected to be knowledgeable enough to keep a company’s board briefed on any issues that could impact the value of its brand. Weinstein, historical sex abuse charges, the implication of failure to be prepared for GDPR and gender pay are among the issues to have helped thrust the subject firmly into the spotlight, and it’s not going away. Continue reading “Employment law: Doyle Clayton”

With increasing scrutiny of outside spend, general counsel are under mounting pressure to deliver a smooth-running and more efficient machine, as well as effective legal advice. GCs must therefore fine-tune their teams with a discerning eye for quality and economy. Continue reading “Precision instruments”

The collapse of film giant Kodak in 2012 is already established to many as the definitive case study of the failure of a business convinced its model would last forever. At its peak, Kodak’s share of the photographic film market was more than 80% in the US and 50% globally. So, when a Kodak employee invented the first digital camera in the 1970s, he was told by the board to keep quiet about it. Denial took hold right up until January 2017 when it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Reborn as a tiny, niche player with a few lucrative patents these days, annual profits for Kodak now are around $12m. Continue reading “On borrowed time”

It is dominated by mid-sized firms while global players and City leaders lag far behind. Watson Farley & Williams (WFW) sits in the third spot. You must scroll down nearly 40 positions before finding the likes of Linklaters and Clifford Chance.

Continue reading “Reversal of fortunes”

Litigation finance is becoming an increasingly important part of the commercial litigation landscape: according to the 2017 Litigation Finance Survey conducted by Burford Capital, the number of lawyers in the US who said their firms had used litigation finance has risen 414% since 2013. Over half (54%) of UK lawyers who have not yet used litigation finance expect to do so within two years.

Continue reading “Five things general counsel should know about litigation finance”