Will Dentons deal add pressure on others to go global?
The recently-announced merger of global law firm Dentons with Singapore’s Rodyk has got others wondering if it will add pressure on their firm to expand. The Dentons deal, which also included Australia’s Gadens, could mean that others will also seek global partners in order to match Dentons' capacity. TSMP law’s senior counsel and joint managing director Thio Shen Yi told the Straits Times that the city state is growing in stature: "The use of Singapore law is gaining traction. If you are doing business in this part of the world, you will inevitably need to use a firm with Singapore law capability.” However he does not expect Singapore to lose its local law firms highlighting their strength and that it would not be in the profession’s best interests.
Hong Kong businesses unprepared for new competition law
New competition legislation comes into force in Hong Kong on December 14 but a leading antitrust lawyer says that many businesses in the region are unprepared for the change. Price fixing, market sharing and bid rigging are among practices which will become illegal but Mayer Brown JSM partner John Hickin says that changing the ways firms do business will be tough for some. He told the South China Post: "Some of the practices and behaviours have been entrenched over a very long time. For 20 or 30 years, people have been behaving in a certain way and it's difficult to change that overnight." Retailers and the construction industry are among the sectors that Hickin says are most at risk of breaching the new Competition Ordinance.
New partner for international law firm in Sydney
Lauren Magraith has joined Baker & McKenzie in Sydney as a partner in its corporate practice. She has extensive experience of corporate transactions and has previously held roles as an Executive Director in J.P. Morgan’s Equity Capital Markets team, Assistant General Counsel of J.P. Morgan’s Investment Bank and recently as Executive Counsel at
Herbert Smith Freehills. Magraith has worked on some of Australia's largest transactions in recent times, including the AU$5.679 billion IPO of Medibank Private and Westpac's AU$3.5 billion entitlement offer.
LexisNexis acquires Lex Machina
Global content and technology firm LexisNexis has acquired the privately held Lex Machina, a software as a service business which operates the Legal Analytics platform. The joining of the two firms will allow the technology of Lex to mine the vast library of court dockets and other legal documents held by LexisNexis.
