The sale of the natural gas transmission system operator, DESFA, is part of Greece’s wider strategy of disposing assets to reduce the country’s debt following the financial crisis. The deal implies a total equity value for DESFA of €810m.

Alex Kyriakoulis, HFW’s lead corporate partner, told Legal Business that Greece has earmarked some €50bn in assets to be sold off, having already sold a 67% stake in Piraeus Port to Chinese shipping giant COSCO in 2016.

Kyriakoulis, who has advised the Greek government for the last seven years, commented: ‘It’s their second or third attempt to privatise the Greek gas industry. They had previously tried to sell for a slightly lower consideration, about €400m. They’ve done well to sell the same stock for €535m.’

CC also advised the Greek state on EU law matters, while local outfit Koutalidis Law Firm provided Greek law counsel. The buying consortium, consisting of Snam, Enagás and Fluxys, was advised by Athens-based Kyriakides Georgopoulos Law Firm.

Elsewhere, Weil is acting for French IT company Atos in its $3.67bn acquisition of US-based IT services provider Syntel.

The all-cash transaction will see Atos buy all of Syntel’s outstanding shares at $41 per share as well as the US company’s debt. Atos expects the Syntel deal to bring in around $1bn in additional revenue.

New York-based M&A partner Jackie Cohen led Weil’s team that comprised partners Claude Serra, Chayim Neubort, Paul Wessel, Jeffrey Osterman, Annemargaret Connolly, Morgan Bale, Olivier Jauffret, Ariel Kronman, Randi Singer and Ted Posner.

Jones Day, which acted for Syntel, was led by M&A partners James Dougherty and Tim FitzSimons.

Finally, Kirkland landed a key role on the $430m sale of Coriant, a provider of hyperscale network solutions, to California-based Infinera.

Infinera, which was represented by Palo Alto firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, will pay $150m in cash at closing, with additional instalments of $25m and $55m over the coming years. Infinera also plans to issue around 21 million shares which, combined with the cash consideration, brings the overall deal value to roughly $430m.

The Kirkland team was led by corporate partner Hamed Meshki, and included capital markets partner Dennis Myers, real estate partner Roberto Miceli, tax partners Russell Light and Josh McLane and debt finance partner David Nemecek.

[email protected]

The report by the Women and Equalities Committee on sexual harassment in the workplace published today (25 July) is the culmination of an enquiry launched by MPs in the wake of the #MeToo movement that saw the legal profession’s handling of these situations thrust into the spotlight.

The enquiry saw City Allen & Overy in the firing line for its conduct in the Weinstein saga after it emerged that employment partner Mark Mansell had been responsible for drafting a gagging order for the disgraced Hollywood mogul in 1998.

But it was not only employment counsel given cause to squirm as a string of sexual harassment allegations within law firms emerged, some involving NDAs.

Commenting on the report, Maria Miller, chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, said: ‘It is utterly shameful that in 2018, unwanted sexual comments, touching, groping and assault are seen as an everyday occurrence and part of the culture in many workplaces. Government, regulators and employers have been dodging their responsibilities for far too long.’

The report sets out a five-point plan to ensure that tackling sexual harassment is at the top of the agenda for employers, including a recommendation to ‘clean up the use of non-disclosure agreements’ by requiring the use of ‘standard, plain English confidentiality clauses that set out the meaning, limit and effect of the clause and by making it an offence to misuse such clauses.’ It deems that whistleblowing provisions should be extended so that disclosures to the police and regulators such as the Equality and Human Rights Commission are protected.

These steps follow the committee’s grilling of Mansell in March when several aspects of the NDA he drafted for Weinstein were questioned. A&O had in 1998 represented the producer after Zelda Perkins, who had worked at Weinstein’s company, Miramax, alleged knowledge that Weinstein had sexually assaulted a colleague at the company. Weinstein denies that he engaged in non-consensual sexual acts.

One of the main ethical sticking points was a clause that read: ‘if any criminal legal process involving Harvey Weinstein or Miramax requires [Perkins] to give evidence, she will give 48 hours’ notice to Mark Mansell, a lawyer at Allen & Overy, before making any disclosure.’

When questioned by the committee on whether limiting disclosure could be seen as perverting the course of justice, Mansell said he could ‘see how people might view it that way’.

The call for clarity is also in response to claims that Perkins was left with the idea that the gagging order she signed meant a criminal investigation was more difficult to pursue.

The report also calls for regulators to take a more active role in tackling sexual harassment in the workplace. This should include ‘setting out the actions they will take to help tackle this problem, including the enforcement action they will take; and by making it clear to those they regulate that sexual harassment is a breach of professional standards and a reportable offence with sanctions.’

That recommendation came after the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) was criticised following a second committee hearing in April when it was discovered that the regulator failed to investigate A&O’s conduct in the agreement when it had the chance last November. In the report, the committee states it was ‘particularly disappointed by apparent lack of rigour in the SRA’s approach to investigating whether there had been unethical practice by the lawyers involved in the Zelda Perkins case.’

In April, MP Philip Davis lambasted SRA boss Paul Philip for not pursuing the investigation sooner, labelling the regulator’s relationship with the Magic Circle firm as ‘like some sort of cosy old boys network kind of thing, where they’re scratching each other’s backs and not really taking anything seriously.’

The SRA in March issued a warning notice reminding lawyers of their responsibility to ensure that, among other things, these agreements are not used to prevent parties from reporting to the regulator or the police in the event of alleged sexual misconduct; shouldn’t prevent the person having a copy of the NDA or making a protected disclosure; and shouldn’t be used to prevent the person from co-operating with a criminal investigation.

The committee said it was encouraged by that development, and hoped the Bar Standards Board and the Bar Council would follow suit. It also urged regulators to ‘demonstrate that members of the legal profession will face serious sanctions if they sexually harass clients or colleagues or if they misuse NDAs to silence victims of sexual harassment.’

Miller concluded: ‘NDAs have their place in settling complaints, but they must not be used to prevent or dissuade victims from reporting incidents as is clearly the case now. We expect proper regulation of NDAs and that any unethical practices lead to strong and appropriate sanctions.’

[email protected]

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and Allen & Overy (A&O) were on the losing side as the EC found Google had illegally required manufacturers of smartphones running its Android operating system to pre-install its internet browsing and search engine apps.

Comparisons have been drawn with the Microsoft-Internet Explorer case a decade ago, which spelled the end of the tie-up between the Windows operating system and its web browser after the European Commission said it harmed competition.

Microsoft decided not to challenge the Commission’s decision and offered users the chance to switch to a competing web browser in what was ‘the beginning of a new Microsoft’, according to CC’s antitrust partner Dieter Paemen, part of the team acting for FairSearch alongside the firm’s chair of antitrust, Thomas Vinje. ‘We’ll have to see whether the same will be true for Google.’

EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said yesterday (18 July) Google paid Android phone manufacturers to pre-install the Google Search app on their devices and made this a condition of licensing its Google Play app store, the main gateway to third party apps on Android. It had also prevented manufacturers wishing to pre-install Google apps from selling even a single smartphone running on open source versions of Android.

‘These practices have denied rivals the chance to innovate and compete on the merits,’ said Vestager. ‘They have denied European consumers the benefits of effective competition in the important mobile sphere. This is illegal under EU antitrust rules.’

The decision brings to an end a case that started more than five years ago. In March 2013 company consortium FairSearch complained to the Commission that Google used its Android mobile operating system, which is currently run on around 80% of all smartphones, to spread its online advertising monopoly to phones. Four other complaints were filed in the following years, by independent App store Aptoide, software developer Disconnect, Russian AI company Yandex and pressure group Open Internet Project.

FairSearch turned to CC’s antitrust veteran Vinje, who also advised the group in a case that brought another multibillion-euro fine against Google, as the EC ruled in June last year that the company had illegally promoted its own comparison shopping service above others in its search engine results.

The Commission launched its investigation into the Android case in 2015, while Google instructed Cleary’s Nicholas Levy and Thomas Graf as well as A&O’s Juergen Schindler.

The decision and record fine is now likely to add to claims that the EU is targeting US companies amid colder relations triggered by president Donald Trump’s stance on trade. However, antitrust experts reject the allegations: ‘The type of abuse the Commission is talking about here is very well established,’ said Bird & Bird’s co-head of competition and EU law Peter Willis. ‘Any company that uses its dominant position in one market to dominate in any other is at risk.’

Willis welcomed the fact that the case ‘raises the profile of competition enforcement in general’: ‘Even if you treat the Google case as quite specific, these things do get noticed in boardrooms. One of the consequences of the cases over the last few years is that we find that executives have a little bit more understanding and knowledge of competition law than was the case ten years ago.’

Making up less than 5% of Google’s $110bn annual revenue, yesterday’s record fine is unlikely to amount to much more than the proverbial drop in the ocean. What is more significant in the eyes of antitrust experts is the fact that Google has three months to stop its anti-competitive practices or face a penalty of up to 5% of the average daily turnover of its parent company Alphabet.

Google has already announced it will appeal the decision just like it did with last year’s fine, but it will have to apply separately to suspend the application of the sentence while the appeal is heard. If the application is rejected, the firm will have to start doing things differently.

CC’s Paemen played down the impact of the changes for Google’s business model: ‘There are contractual restrictions they will need to remove,’ he said. ‘But otherwise there is nothing that changes.’ However he added: ‘The bigger issue is whether this will lead to a wider change of the behaviour of Google like Microsoft did.’

Miles Trower, competition partner at TLT, commented: ‘We appreciate the consistency of user experience when using Android devices, and probably some cost savings too, but size matters, and mobile search is becoming increasingly important. While there are all manner of cost, consistency and consumer experience justifications for Google’s model, the practices that the Commission has challenged serve to reinforce Google’s pre-eminent position in online search – albeit users can choose other engines if they want – and some might say the Commission’s approach ignores what users value most.‘

While it could be observed that Google’s decision to appeal signals that the company is unlikely to give up any time soon, it should be remembered that the fight is open on more than one front, with the EC also investigating restrictions that Google has placed on the ability of third party websites to display search advertisements from Google’s competitors – the AdSense case.

[email protected]

The veteran celebrity’s victory in his long-running privacy case against the BBC has highlighted issues of potentially huge scope for the media and other publishers in reporting investigations against individuals.

A High Court judgment from Mr Justice Mann on 18 July awarded Richard £210,000 in damages, after the singer sued the broadcaster for breaching his privacy in reporting that he was investigated over historical child sex abuse allegations. Richard denies the claims, for which he was not arrested and no charges were brought.

The damages, which come nearly four years after coverage of the South Yorkshire Police’s raid on Richard’s home, included a £20,000 sum for aggravated damages after the BBC nominated the story for an award. The BBC was ordered to pay 65% of the £190,000 core damages, with the South Yorkshire Police to cover the 35% balance.

The ruling attracted much attention for apparently focusing on the publication of the fact of the investigation against Richards, rather than potential aggravating factors like the prominence or ‘sensationalist’ nature of the coverage, which included aerial footage of the singer’s home.

Mann held that: ‘Knowing that Sir Cliff was under investigation might be of interest to the gossip-mongers, but it does not contribute materially to the genuine public interest in the existence of police investigations in this area. It was known that investigations were made and prosecutions brought. I do not think that knowledge of the identity of the subject of the investigation was a material legitimate addition to the stock of public knowledge for these purposes.’

BBC director of news and current affairs Fran Unsworth claimed the judgment created new case law in a dramatic shift against freedom to report on police investigations. She argued such previous reporting led to further complainants coming forward and meant police investigations and conduct could be scrutinised.

She commented: ‘We don’t believe this is compatible with liberty and press freedoms; something that has been at the heart of this country for generations.’ The BBC was considering an appeal, Unsworth added: ‘This impacts not just the BBC, but every media organisation.’

RPC partner Nicola Cain echoed the concerns, saying the media would have to ‘walk on eggshells’ when reporting police investigations in future. The judgment also further inflated privacy damages awards, with this case dwarfing the previous £60,000 record awarded in former Formula One boss Max Mosley’s case against News of the World.

Cain commented: ‘This puts the media in a very difficult position when reporting on investigations. Reporting that “Someone, somewhere, is being investigated for something” is not going to be very interesting.’

Osborne Clarke international head of digital business Ashley Hurst, however, said the more interesting aspect of the judgment was the blurring of boundaries between libel and privacy law.

‘Much will be written about the chilling effect of this case on the media’s ability to report on matters relating to crime. However, once it is accepted that a suspect in a criminal investigation has a reasonable expectation of privacy in relation to the fact that he is such a suspect, each case will turn on its facts as to whether there is a public interest justification for revealing that fact to the world.’

Hurst said the judge had found the protection of damage to reputation was part of the function of the privacy law. This allowed Richard to recover not just general damages for damage to reputation but also for certain costs incurred to mitigate damage to his reputation and financial losses suffered as a result of that damage. He commented: ‘This may lead claimants to consider bringing privacy claims instead of libel claims, particularly where the media defendant may advance a truth defence to a libel claim.’

Addleshaw Goddard partner David Engel said one of the more interesting points in the judgment related to findings made around the public’s presumption of innocence in such cases. While previous cases had said the public would consider someone innocent until proven guilty, Mann had accepted a more likely scenario.

‘The reality is people assume if you’re being investigated by the police, then there’s a reason. Being connected with these types of [sexual] offences, the very fact you are even being investigated, let alone arrested, can be very damaging, even if you are never charged or prosecuted, and you can never come back from that. This judgment’s saying that the media, and others, must respect a suspect’s right to privacy at that early stage.’

Engel said this was important given a number of cases in recent years where the media had publicised police investigations following complaints of sexual offences which ultimately went nowhere.

Richard was advised by Simkins, which instructed Justin Rushbrooke QC and Godwin Busuttil at 5RB. The BBC’s litigation department instructed Matrix Chambers’ Gavin Millar QC and Aidan Eardley, while DWF advised South Yorkshire Police, instructing Jason Beer QC and Adam Wolanski at 5 Essex Court.

[email protected]

Reflecting the decades-long influx of junior women to the profession, the total number of women lawyers in the world’s second largest legal market is now 50.1% of the UK’s 139,624 practising certificate (PC) holders, and 48% of the 93,155 solicitors in private practice.

The recently-released figures, contained in the Law Society’s Annual Statistics Report for 2017, show women made up a significant majority of new admissions in 2016/17, at 61.6%. In total there are now 69,995 female PC-holders.

Despite this progress at the junior end, the rate of female partnership is still sluggish, improving 2% from last year’s 8,105 to 8,241, compared to 19,884 male equivalents. The number of male partners, however, marginally dipped over the 12-month period, falling 0.7%.

While the figures, which run annually until 31 July 2017, will be taken as evidence of the profession’s success in attracting large numbers of women, lack of progress in gender equality at senior roles raises awkward questions for the industry.

While there were 139,624 solicitors with PCs as of July 2017, a 3% increase annually, the rate of trainee solicitor registrations marginally dropped by 0.2% to 5,719. Women currently make up a sizeable majority of trainee registrations at 62.3%.

The figures also underline the continued expansion of in-house ranks which has been a notable feature of the UK legal market for two decades. The number of PC holders working in-house increased by 3.2%, again outpacing overall increases in the profession. Since 2002, the number of lawyers working in commerce and industry has nearly trebled in England and Wales.

Related Women in law – rising up the agenda but female lawyer numbers continue to slide at elite UK law firms
There were 18,766 solicitors working in commerce and industry as of last July, a 3.5% rise on the 18,137 recorded the previous year. The proportion of PC holders working in-house edged up marginally to 22.2%, though this figure includes many in the public sector and charitable organisations.

In terms of racial diversity, PC holders from BAME groups made up 17% of the total, a substantial improvement on the 7% figure from 2000. However, since 69% of newly-admitted solicitors did not provide their ethnic origin to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), such data is largely incomplete.

Other findings from the report included a sharp increase in the number of alternative business structures (ABS) in operation. There are currently 600 active ABSs, an increase of 125 on the previous year, and 6% of the total 9,488 active private practice firms.

The failure of law firms to establish gender parity in their partnership ranks has been put under intense scrutiny this week, with Allen & Overy (A&O) criticised by the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy select committee over its refusal to publish partner gender pay figures.

[email protected]

The private equity leader’s 2017/18 performance eclipsed last year’s result when revenue inched up 4% against a backdrop of Brexit uncertainty.

Travers’ robust performance was also reflected in a 24% hike in PEP, jumping from £970,000 in 2016/17 to £1.2m this year.

Travers managing partner David Patient (pictured) said: ‘A lot of hard work, from every team across the firm, has gone into producing these excellent results.

‘The strategic investments in our people and business over the last few years are paying dividends, and the confidence we, and our clients, have in our model is reflected in some fantastic work this year,’ added Patient.

Undoubtedly a major factor in the positive results is the firm’s ability to punch above its weight, particularly in big-ticket private equity deals.

Long-standing client Bridgepoint proved a fruitful source of work for Travers over the last year, with the firm advising the private equity shop on its £1.5bn sale of food chain Pret A Manger in June. In another gastronomical deal, Travers was again on hand to advise Bridgepoint as it acquired a raft of UK Burger King franchises.

Other standout mandates included the firm’s representation of PureGym’s management team as its business was acquired by US private equity house Leonard Green & Partners for £600m.

Travers is currently led by Patient and senior partner Chris Hale, with Patient being re-elected as managing partner at the beginning of this year and starting his second three-year term on 1 July.

[email protected]

The Chicago-bred giant announced on Wednesday (11 July) it would open a new eight-partner base in Dallas, hiring six lawyers from US rivals including Jones Day M&A partner Michael Considine.

The Dallas opening follows the rapid expansion of the firm’s Houston outpost, which launched in 2014 with a handful of lawyers led by 35-year-old star Andrew Calder, who was hired from Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. Four years on, the Houston office now counts 140 lawyers.

Considine will be joined in the Dallas office by a team of corporate lawyers focusing on the energy sector.

Jones Day associate Alex Rose, Weil Gotshal & Manges counsel Kevin Crews and Winston & Strawn associate Dilen Kumar will join Kirkland as partners, as will senior associate Thomas Laughlin and counsel Lanchi Huynh, both from Vinson & Elkins.

‘We were looking for hungry, energetic people who are really talented and have a ton of energy around them,’ Calder told Legal Business.

Tax partner David Wheat and corporate partner Ryan Gorsche, who joined Kirkland’s Houston office earlier this year from KPMG and Weil respectively, will also relocate to the new Dallas premises in Bank of America Plaza, which can accommodate around 30 lawyers.

‘That’s only a temporary office space, we can always move somewhere else if we need to,’ said Calder. ‘We don’t have any specific target for growth, it will depend on clients’ demand.’

The Texas presence has helped Kirkland ride hugely on the boom of the energy market of late. The firm has around 225 lawyers working on energy transactions across Texas, New York and Washington DC.

Kirkland has been working with Dallas-based clients for some time, and Calder said it made sense to have a fixed presence in the city: ‘This extension of Kirkland to Dallas also allows the firm to benefit from that significant additional talent pool to service our Dallas and out-of-state clients.’

Dallas is Kirkland’s 14th office worldwide and its ninth in the States. Significantly for a firm with a reputation for being conservative when it comes to expanding its footprint, it comes just over a year after Kirkland opened in Boston in May 2017.

It is also the fourth office the firm opened since Jeffrey Hammes took over as chair in 2010. As well as the two Texan outposts, Hammes oversaw the opening of an office in Beijing in 2013.

The global juggernaut became the highest grossing law firm in the world after posting a 19% hike in revenues to $3.165bn in 2017.

[email protected]

The firm’s revenue for the 2016/17 financial year was up 23% to £242m from £197m, while profit increased 36% to £87m. Since 2012/13, Addleshaws’ revenue has increased 45%, while profit is up 68% over that same period. Its cash position has also improved £65m in that time, to have reserves of £34m.

This year’s financial results are inevitably bolstered by the inclusion of its Scottish merger with HBJ Gateley – a £20m firm which formally combined with Addleshaws on 1 June last year – but also includes organic growth, with England up 11%, Scotland 9% and the foreign exchange-impacted international arm 7%.

Addleshaws managing partner John Joyce told Legal Business the Scottish merger had bedded in fantastically well, increasing work across the firm: ‘I knew the amount of work that we were losing because we weren’t in Scotland, we could see every other week there was something missing for us there.’

The firm has been seeking mergers in other jurisdictions, with talks in Germany called off last June, as well as reports of US merger interest a year earlier.

Addleshaws chief financial officer Colin Brown said the firm’s growth over recent years, as well as the ‘very real example’ of the value driven by the Scottish merger, meant it had the appetite to do more.

Joyce commented: ‘We absolutely want to carry on expanding in any possible way that we can, in any possible place that we can. But we’re quite sensitive about what we want to do. We want to make sure that whatever we do, we do for the right reasons, but the ambition to do something is absolutely there.’

The firm has been active in the lateral hire market over the past year or so, adding 30 partners across England, Scotland, Asia, and in the Gulf region. Key hires include legacy Berwin Leighton Paisner’s (BLP) former Asia head Bob Charlton, as well as a six partner real estate team from Irwin Mitchell in Manchester.

Corporate and infrastructure were identified as targeted areas for growth, with Joyce saying the firm wanted to move up market to take work from Magic Circle firms. He pointed to highlight mandates including advising betting company GVC Holdings on its £3.9bn takeover of rival Ladbrokes Coral, as well as Lloyds Bank on its £1.9bn buyout of credit card provider MBNA as evidence of this ambition.

The retail and consumer sector grew 37% at Addleshaws, while real estate grew 23%. A key mandate in real estate was advising the Chinese government in acquiring its new Chinese Embassy in London, a client Joyce said the firm never would have had 10 years ago.

Addleshaws had set a 2017/18 revenue target of £250m a few years ago, which Joyce described as a ‘really ambitious target’ he could live with missing given the firm had bettered its profit target. He said the market outlook was unclear, but the firm wanted to continue to grow materially.

‘The market’s not bad, but I can’t describe it as a buoyant, flying market. Obviously, the question is when is Brexit going to do something? At some point something will happen and if confidence goes then that’s a challenge.’

[email protected]

1. Facebook faces £500,000 fine from UK data watchdog [via BBC News]

2. Apple employee ‘stole driverless car secrets’ [via BBC News]

3. Rupert Murdoch ups his offer for takeover of Sky to £24.5bn [via The Guardian]

4. Sainsbury’s appoints Scicluna to steer £15bn Asda merger [via Sky News]

5. I want my children — not my wife’s — to inherit our Spanish home. How do I structure my will to make this happen? [via The Financial Times]