Cable’s plan for pay votes splits the City March 14, 2012 VINCE Cable’s plans to crack down on executive pay split opinion yesterday, with shareholder groups welcoming the proposals as business leaders warned that the plans risk “micro-managing”. The business secretary yesterday laid out plans to force firms to hold binding votes on its future remuneration and for “golden parachute” payments worth more than one year’s [...]
It’s not just lawyers who prosper in law March 14, 2012 LAW is bigger business than ever. Freshfields employs 5,000 people and has twenty-seven offices in sixteen countries. Linklaters also has twenty-seven offices in twenty countries. Its revenues in 2010-11 were £1.2bn. Of course, this is good news for lawyers. But non-lawyers work for law firms too. Of Freshfields’ 5,000 staff members, 2,000 are business services [...]
Keeping the world’s most complex event on the right side of the law March 14, 2012 COUNTDOWN TO THE LONDON 2012 OLYMPIC GAMES 135 DAYS TO GO Tim Jones explains why Freshfields is the official legal services provider to the 2012 London Olympics Q. what was your brand’s primary reason for being involved with the games? A. We’d been involved for a long time, since 2003 when we worked on the [...]
Lawyers: Removing pension tax relief will hit savers twice March 7, 2012 LAWYERS and pension funds yesterday hit out at proposals to remove tax relief from high-earners’ pension contributions, arguing it would be unfair and overly complicated. Removing the relief on employee contributions for those earning over £150,000 a year could be a tempting move for the government, raising around £8bn per year for the Treasury. However, [...]
All tax rates are too high in Britain March 1, 2012 IT was good to see yet more entrepreneurs and small business owners joining in the campaign to scrap the 50p tax rate yesterday. But supporters of the tax were also out in force yesterday; they deployed three main arguments. The first is that “bankers” (in modern parlance, anybody who works in finance, including fund managers, [...]
STOCK EXCHANGE BLOCKS STELIOS FROM AIRING HIS LATEST ATTACK February 21, 2012 EASYJET founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou has never been shy about letting the airline’s management know what he really thinks. But yesterday’s attack on chairman Mike Rake’s team, in which he paints EasyJet lawyers Herbert Smith in an unflattering light, was the straw that broke the London Stock Exchange’s back – it refused to publish the [...]
Warrant for Kazakh bank boss who snubbed court February 16, 2012 AN ARREST warrant was issued yesterday for Kazakh billionaire Mukhtar Ablyazov, the former BTA Bank chairman accused of embezzling up to $5bn (£3.2bn) from the bank. Mr Justice Teare found the tycoon – who fled to the UK in 2009 – in contempt of court for breaching orders related to the freezing of his assets, [...]
Cameron calls on insurers to cut premiums February 13, 2012 DAVID Cameron will today announce plans to reduce insurance premiums by cutting red tape, reducing legal bills and tackling the high number of spurious claims. Proposals include a plan to reduce the number of whiplash claims by enforcing a higher evidence threshold for injuries and cutting the £1,200 fee that lawyers can earn for small [...]
EX-TRADER’S INSIDE JOB ON MORGAN STANLEY February 12, 2012 ART IMITATES life in the new novel On the Floor by former Morgan Stanley bond trader Aifric Campbell. “The real truth about the City – the pressure and the ruthlessness – is best written about by people who have lived it,” says Campbell, who drew on her years as Morgan Stanley’s first female MD on [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS February 9, 2012 ICAEW Arthur Bailey has been elected as the next vice-president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW). Bailey, who will take office on 13 June, has served on ICAEW’s council for 14 years, including three years as chairman of the audit committee, and is a member of the board. He is [...]