Direct Line shares plummet after insurer scraps 2022 dividend January 11, 2023 Shares in Direct Line plummeted today after the insurer said it expects to scrap its 2022 dividend due to facing a “challenging and volatile operating environment in the fourth quarter”. The insurance company said its board “no longer expects to declare a final dividend for 2022” due to it facing a series of challenges related [...]
City law firms may be forced to make layoffs as UK downturn hits, recruiters say January 11, 2023 The City’s top law firms could soon be set to follow their US counterparts in laying off staff, recruiters have said. The UK’s corporate law firms may be forced to make lawyers redundant due to the wider economic downturn and a lull in M&A activity, recruiters told Morning Wire Scot Gibson, director of legal sector [...]
EY appoints ex-Cargill exec as newly-separated advisory firm’s CFO January 10, 2023 EY has appointed former Cargill and General Electric exec Jamie Miller as chief financial officer (CFO) of its split-off global advisory firm. Miller’s appointment as CFO of EY’s soon-to-be separate consultancy firm comes as the Big Four firm pushes forwards with plans to float the newly spun-out business in New York. EY chief executive Carmine [...]
Dechert hires ‘high stakes’ litigator to fight journalist’s ‘hack-and-smear’ lawsuit January 10, 2023 US law firm Dechert has hired “high-stakes” litigator Kaplan, Hecker & Fink to defend it from being sued by a former Wall Street Journal reporter, over claims it hired hackers to tarnish his reputation and push him out of a job. Dechert is being sued by the WSJ’s former chief foreign correspondent, Jay Solomon, over [...]
Clawback: How Barclays is chasing down Covid-19 business loan cash January 10, 2023 Barclays has teamed up with a specialist insolvency practitioner to recover money loaned to small businesses through the UK’s Covid support schemes. The British bank has joined forces with insolvency firm Manolete Partners to recover emergency loans paid through the UK government backed Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS), the Financial Times first reported. The UK’s [...]
Pinsent Masons ramps up its ESG presence with latest acquisition January 10, 2023 Pinsent Masons today acquired sustainable finance consultancy Morgan Green Advisory (MGA) as the London law firm seeks to capitalise on surging demand for ESG advice. The law firm’s acquisition for an undisclosed sum will see MGA’s 25 expert consultants join Pinsent Masons’ 2,500-strong international team. The London firm’s decision to snap up MGA comes as [...]
UK insurance: shares in Aviva and Admiral shrug off Bank of England’s warnings of a ‘prolonged’ recession in the sector January 10, 2023 The UK’s insurance companies were told to brace themselves for a “prolonged” recession by boosting their risk management processes, the Bank of England (BoE) has said in a letter to sector CEOs. In a letter to insurance chief executives, the BoE’s insurance watchdog warned that various risks might stem from the downturn as it called [...]
EXCL – ‘Trainee train drivers get £24k, double the starting income of advocates’, says City legal whizz January 10, 2023 Technology is increasingly changing the way we work, and law firms are no exception. Innovation and new technical solutions are rapidly penetrating the City’s legal powerhouses and this process will only accelerate in 2023. At the same time, barristers and other lawyers feel they are not compensated sufficiently for the hard work they put in, [...]
Barclays, NatWest and HSBC increasingly targeted by litigation funders in wave of class-action lawsuits January 9, 2023 The UK’s top banks are increasingly being targeted with class-action lawsuits as litigation funders back claims against some of Britain’s largest lenders in their pursuit of high returns. Banks listed on the FTSE 100 index are currently facing at least 109 class-action lawsuits in multiple countries around the world, according to analysis by law firm [...]
Lloyd’s of London syndicate Beazley launches world’s first ‘cyber catastrophe bond’ January 9, 2023 Lloyd’s syndicate Beazley has launched the world’s first ‘cyber catastrophe bond’. The insurer’s catastrophe bond protects Beazley’s balance sheet in the event it is forced to pay out more than $300m (£246m) in insurance on any cyber risk policy. Catastrophe bonds have traditionally been used to protect insurers from natural disaster risks, through deals that [...]