New York-based corporate law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf has filed for bankruptcy protection in what is widely perceived to be the largest law firm collapse in US history. The international firm, which at one stage employed close to 1,300 lawyers in 12 countries, announced it has filed for Chapter 11 and is seeking for approval to liquidate after failing to find a merger partner. It is understood that Dewey & LeBoeuf owes around $225m to secured lenders and an additional $90m to a range of creditors, according to court papers. Dewey said that negative economic conditions and the firm’s partnership compensation arrangements caused a situa...
The US Supreme Court late on Wednesday handed down a long awaited judgement which upheld the appellants’ claim in the FII group Litigation v HM Revenue & Customs. The judge ruled that a section of the Finance Act 2007 has been in breach of EU law. The court specifically found that the Treasury breached European law by retrospectively blocking tax refund claims. A ballpark figure of up to £5bn of revenue is at stake in the litigation, which may have to be refunded to six multinational companies. One of the key test claimants, the British American Tobacco Group, could receive an estimated refund of £1.2bn. HM Revenue & Customs sai...
China’s biggest e-commerce provider, Alibaba Group Holdings, has come to a $7.1bn agreement after years of negotiations with Yahoo! to buy back half the 40 percent share owned by the American internet giant, the companies have announced. As part of the agreement, Yahoo! will sell half its stake for an estimated $6.3bn in cash and $800m in new Alibaba preferred stock. It is believed the purchase could pave the way for Alibaba to pursue an IPO within the next 18 months. Alibaba Group is currently valued at $30-35bn and is expected to raise the money through a mix of cash, debt and equity....
Global commodities giant Louis Dreyfus announced late Sunday it is planning to issue bonds for the first time in its 160-year history, according to its CEO Serge Schoen. The firm is intending to boost investments by around 40 percent when weighed against the volume of ventures made between 2006 and 2011. The privately held food trading powerhouse will also undertake several acquisitions, leading to estimated spending of around $7bn, according to reports. Dreyfus is set to finance its expansion plans via the capital markets and cash. “We have a strong balance sheet but we want to diversify our sources of capital,” Schoen told reporters. Th...
China National Offshore Oil Corp (Cnooc), China’s biggest offshore oil producer, late on Wednesday commenced its first unaided deepwater exploration in the South China Sea. Cnooc’s independent deep water oil drilling marks the beginning of a new era, as it typically relied on foreign partnerships such as the one established with Canadian Husky Energy. The move to go solo comes amid increased tensions over ownership regarding disputed waters in the region and is perceived to be the Chinese’s response to Philippine patrol ships around the area. The part of the sea being drilled is known as the 43/11 block and reaches water depths of aroun...
Unemployment figures for March within the 17 nations of the eurozone rose by 169,000 or at a rate of 10.9 percent, the highest level since the euro launch, said statistics agency Eurostat. The worse numbers came out of Spain at 24.1 percent, Portugal at 15.3 percent and Greece, where the unemployment rate hit 21.7 percent. The increase means official unemployment figures are now at 17.4 million within the eurozone. Over the past year joblessness increased by 1.68 million. The news comes as France and Greece are preparing to hold national elections on Sunday and a day before the European Central Bank’s monthly monetary policy meeting....
It’s with great pleasure that World Finance announces the opening of voting of the 2013 Legal Awards. Now in its sixth year, the World Finance Legal Awards are fast becoming the global benchmark for the industry. Celebrating the best firms and individuals working within the sector, the objective of the awards is to capture and examine the top performers, informing the World Finance readership of those at the forefront of the market. Outside of the legal industry the awards will provide a definitive point of reference for firms, for commercial and private clients, professional advisers, and C suite executives searching for a roadmap to busin...
Tough austerity measures and harsh labour reforms are hurting employment markets globally, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Unemployment figures are forecast to increase at a rate of 6.1 percent to 202 million during 2012. The organisation found that employment levels are not expected to return to pre-crisis levels until the end of 2016. The report said that fiscal austerity had “devastating consequences” for employment and warned that unless governments combined their austerity schemes with job creation they were taking the risk of fuelling public unrest. This was confirmed by the World of Work Report 2012, which...
Standard & Poor’s late on Thursday cut Spain’s sovereign credit rating by two notches due to “a challenging fiscal outlook” for the nation. The ratings agency downgraded the country from A to BBB+. The drop reflects the agency’s views on “the mounting risks to Spain’s net general government debt as a share of GDP in light of the contracting economy, in particular due to the deterioration in the budget deficit trajectory for 2011-2015,” S&P said. S&P cited concerns about the implementation of Spain’s €27bn austerity programme and the likeliness of its government having to provide “further fiscal support” ...
South Korea’s GDP grew 2.8 percent year-on-year for the first quarter 2012, slipping to its weakest level in two and a half years, according to figures published by the central bank on Thursday. The country’s economy expanded in the quarter by 0.9 percent thanks to gains in exports and improved domestic demand. The consumer confidence index climbed to 104 in April, the highest since May last year. GDP results come just a month after the central bank reduced the country’s growth forecast from the previous 3.7 percent to 3.5 percent for 2012....