The European Lawyer

The news that just two independent law firms – Uria Menendez and Homburger – made it into Thomson Reuters’s H1 European M&A tables is not, on the face of it, disastrous for independent law firms. At least the bigger ones. The real concern is that, in markets that have seen a huge upturn (such as … More

The creation of US-UK giants Hogan Lovells and SNR Denton may have been the biggest mergers of the year so far but, within the slightly more modest European markets, consolidation is also starting to pick up.

The news that Gleiss Lutz had bagged respected Hamburg boutique Rittstieg has been the pick of the 2010 European mergers. … More

Milan: Italy's financial centre

The news that Simmons & Simmons is pulling out of Padua – after the local team moved to Gianni Origoni Grippo & Partners – all but effectively ends the presence of international firms outside of the core Italian hubs.

Simmons’ Padua office is the latest in a line of closures across Italy’s … More

First Lovells and now Denton Wilde Sapte. Two of the former “chasing pack” London law firms that were, a decade ago, attempting to challenge the magic circle for premium instruction have joined forces with two sprawling US national firms (Hogan & Hartson and Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal respectively).

Lovells spread its international network to France … More

If French is the language of love then English is the language of business. This mantra was underscored by the pioneering pilot project to allow German courts to hear commercial litigation cases in the English language (http://www.europeanlawyer.co.uk/page_77.html).

Traditionalists in Germany (not to mention countries such as France and Italy) may curl in horror at the thought … More

Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe has never been a shrinking violet when it comes to publicity and this past week has proven no different. First was the news that its proposed merger with UK firm SJ Berwin had, like so many of Orrick’s previous dalliances, failed. Then was the bold announcement that Orrick would no longer … More

It is easy to underestimate Estonia. The country’s population of just 1.34 million is dwarfed by most major European cities and its location, nestled between Finland, Latvia and Russia, also makes the jurisdiction peripheral, at least geographically.

In reality, and economically, Estonia has certainly punched above its weight however. The country enjoyed double-digit growth in the … More

The news that Linklaters asked six lawyers from its Lisbon office to leave the firm seems to have taken some observers by surprise. For others, however, it will reflect one of the prime problems that has been looming as a dark cloud over Portugal for some time; the country’s law firms could well be overstaffed.

Granted, … More

All eyes will be on the Warsaw Stock Exchange next Wednesday (12 May). This is when Polish insurance company Powszechny Zaklad Ubezpieczen (PZU) makes its much-anticipated initial public offering (IPO), which many observers believe will be a pivotal deal for European capital markets.

Not only will the IPO be the largest in Polish history but is … More