Merricks, which has recently elected to dissolve the partnership, has been put into administration. On Thursday 8 April, the same day Merricks’ remaining nine partners elected to formally dissolve, a court order was granted by Mr Justice Lewison and the firm ceased trading. Nick O’Reilly and Jonathan Birch of accountancy firm Numerica were appointed joint […]
Denton Wilde Sapte’s soon-to-be-defunct Hong Kong office has lost dispute resolution and insolvency partner Simon Powell to Jones Day. It is understood that Powell left the City firm last week when it announced that it was axing its entire Asian practice (The Lawyer, 12 April).
A new guard is to take over management of Nicholson Graham & Jones, with insolvency head Tony Griffiths succeeding Michael Johns as managing partner. The changes come following the collapse of the firm’s merger talks with Pinsents earlier this year. “There were a number of things that were put on hold during the Pinsents talks,” […]
Parmalat’s special administrator Enrico Bondi has been barred from administering the collapsed dairy company’s Cayman Islands companies following a tense court battle. In a significant victory for local firm Walkers, a Cayman Islands court upheld insolvency supremo Michael Crystal QC’s argument that Bondi should not act as both an official appointed by the Italian regulator […]
Enrico Bondi’s battle to be Parmalat’s worldwide special administrator was widened last week to Ireland, where he went head-to-head with the Bank of America’s lawyers Linklaters and Sidley Austin Brown & Wood. Bank of America is fighting for the liquidation of Parmalat’s Irish company, Eurofood IFSC, to be handled in Ireland. Weil Gotshal & Manges […]
Gian Paola Zini, Parmalat’s infamous lawyer, has called in Massimo Dinoia (pictured), the former lawyer to Italy’s ‘Mr Clean’ to come to his defence. Dinoia advised Antonio Di Pietro, the former Italian magistrate who spearheaded major anti-corruption investigations in the mid-1990s in a case against Silvio Berlusconi’s brother. Zini is under arrest while Italian investigators […]
Lawyers acting for Parmalat’s creditors will have to fight it out among themselves over the distribution of legal fees as negotiations over the reorganisation hit stalemate. Bingham McCutchen, Clifford Chance, Linklaters, Mazzoni e Associati Studi Legali and Studio Legale Chiomenti are among the firms acting for an array of creditors of the bankrupt Italian food […]
Four Parmalat-linked companies in Malta set up by Maltese government lawyers and a further three established by Parmalat’s own auditors have been given a clean bill of health by the island’s Financial Services Authority (MFSA). Joe Bannister, the MFSA’s chairman, said investigators are looking into whether questionable off-balance sheet transactions took place through Parmalat-related accounts in […]
Matheson Ormsby Prentice has been drafted in to advise the provisional liquidators looking at Parmalat’s Irish subsidiary, Eurofood IFSC. The Dublin-based subsidiary’s main corporate law firm was McCann FitzGerald, and one of the firm’s partners, Ambrose Loughlin, was a non-executive director of the company. The company was audited by the Dublin office of Grant Thornton. However, accountants Farrell Grant Sparks, appointed by Bank of […]
The unravelling of the Enron debacle has stepped up a gear, with Herbert Smith scoring a major court victory over White & Case. The latest Enron court action concerns a $523m (£284.9m) claim by Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), represented in London by White & Case partner Margaret Cole, against Rabobank, represented by Herbert Smith […]
Leeds firm Zermansky & Partners welcomed in the new year with its eponymous founder Victor Zermansky celebrating 50 years on the roll of solicitors. Newly-qualified in 1955, Zermansky set up his firm having completed two years military service in the Far East in the army legal aid department. The firm is remarkable in the fact […]
Hammonds is continuing to rebuild its insolvency team with the hire of partners Alistair Bacon and Jeremy Reilly from Matthew Arnold & Baldwin and Cobbetts respectively. Bacon was the co-head of insolvency at Watford firm Matthew Arnold & Baldwin. He advised on the high profile liquidation of Fish! for key client Barclays, as well as […]