Gaggle of deals emerging from the crisis

Not everything is so bad, if you're a corporate law firm acting on the increasing gaggle of deals emerging from the crisis

LawFuel – Legal Jobs Newswire - The financial storm clouds of recent weeks have a silver lining for several major law firms in London and New York, with major firms lining up for some healthy billing ahead.

The demise of Lehman Brothres and Merrill Lynch has created what Super-Investor Warren Buffett calls an “economic Pearl Harbour” but the losses from some law firms are the substantial profits for others.

Firms on either side of the Atlantic stand to make big money from the bank failures and the ongoing problems stabilizing the banking and finance meltdown occurring in both countries.

Further, there is the ongoing problems of UK banking giant HBOS. Britains Lord Chancellor talked about a massive surge in litigation, a “new era”in dispute resolution and litigation. He also foresaw a new breed of hedge fund that would fund litigation arising out of collapsed institutions.

Ironically, a new report from Mergermarket also shows a flurry of North American M&A activity as well with 28 deals totally US$15.b billion occurring in the week ending 14 September.
The ongoing and brand new legal work requiring massive legal expenditure include the HBOS restructuring, the propping up of insurance giant AIG, the conversion of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs from investment banks into bank holding companies and the purchase of Merrill Lynch by the Bank of America. For starters.

Among the firms emerging as centre-piece players in the new world order are:

• Sullivan & Cromwell – work with AIG, Goldman Scachs, Fannie Mae
• Linkaters – the UK end of the Lehman Brothers debacle
• Lovells – representing the Financial Services Authority (UK) in the Lehmans collapse
• Clifford Chance – representing Barclays on part-purchase of Lehman assets
• Skadden Arps – representing Japan’s Nomura Securities in Lehman assets purchase
• Freshfields – representing Bank of England on Lehman’s failure
• Cravath Swaine & Moore and Davis Polk – Advising Hellman & Friedman on purchase of Lehmans’ asset management division

ENDS

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