HSF, Allens advise on Australian Pizza Hut acquisition
Herbert Smith Freehills and Allens
Linklaters have advised the two sides involved in the acquisition of the Australian master franchise of Pizza Hut.
HSF advised private equity firm Allegro Funds which has acquired the Pizza Hut brand for Australia from its global owner Yum! Brands. The team was led by partners Mark Currell and Kristin Stammer.
The Allens Linklaters team advising Yum! Brands included Sydney partners Vijay Cugati, Andrew Wiseman, Veronica Siow and Fiona Crosbie.
European court rules on hyperlinks in Aussie images case
A case brought against an online publisher by the owner of Playboy magazine has been concluded in Europe’s highest court.
It dates back to 2011 when GS Media published an article on its gossip website which linked to a downloadable zip file of pictures of model Britt Dekker. The images were held on an Australian website which did not hold copyright for the pictures.
Sanoma, the owner of Playboy, sued GS claiming copyright infringement by hyperlinking to the pictures. Its argument was that the link was a “communication to the public” under the EU’s copyright laws.
The Law Society Gazette reports that the Dutch Supreme Court asked the Court of Justice of the European Union to rule on whether hyperlinks constitute an infringement of copyright if they link to material that is posted without permission. In essence, whether linking to unauthorised material is the same as publishing it.
The CJEU ruled that while hyperlinking to a third party source was lawful it would become unlawful if the entity posting the link stood to profit from it and knew that the material being linked to was published without permission.
Lawyers lose out on private banking as Wall St firm doubles limit
US law firms count some of the world’s richest lawyers among their elite but it seems that they may not be rich enough for elite banking.
Private banking chiefs at Wall Street bank JP Morgan have announced a doubling of the limit required to access its services and the Wall Street Journal reports that $10 million will price out the lawyers.
The elite US law firms have used the perk of private banking as part of their remuneration packages.
