Law Firms

A U.S. bankruptcy judge is due to rule on Wednesday on WorldCom Inc.’s historic settlement with regulators, capping a long fight over how much the telephone company should pay for its accounting fraud. The settlement calls for WorldCom to pay $500 million in cash and $250 million in new stock in the reorganized company to […]

The Financial Times was yesterday accused of a “hatchet job” and “muckraking” in a potentially record-breaking defamation claim by Collins Stewart Tullett, a City stockbroking firm. The broker is at the centre of a row over allegations of insider dealing and share ramping made by a former employee. Collins is run by outspoken chief executive

Clifford Chance has come top of the MergerMarket announced European M&A league tables for the first time, knocking Linklaters off the top spot. The firm also came top of Thomson Financials tables for announced M&A with a European target. Clifford Chance leapfrogged Linklaters in the 2003 MergerMarket tables, handling 216 deals across Europe worth €163bn

Trevor Kennedy’s relationship with disgraced stockbroker Rene Rivkin has cast his name in infamy. Rivkin’s assertion in an interview with a Swiss district attorney that Kennedy held part of a mystery parcel of shares in the controversial Offset Alpine has jeopardised everything. In the public imagination, Kennedy is inextricably linked to Rivkin’s calamitous and bizarre

Brandon Villery, 29, a four-year associate at Morrison & Foerster, uses an impressive collection of legal resources, but it’s got nothing to do with the Code of Civil Procedure. It’s also a bit more interesting: Playstation, X-Box and Game Boy Advance, otherwise known as video games. One recent afternoon, Villery gathered in the conference room

There has been a trend among Chinese law firms in the past few years of growing big quickly by acquisition and merger. The trend has been, in part, spurred by China’s accession into the World Trade Organization three years ago, which will allow foreign law firms more opportunities to practise in China. A number of

Pitcairn Island women do not live an idyllic South Pacific life, but one dominated by fear and sexual abuse which saw them raped as young girls by the island’s men, descendents of 18th century Bounty mutineers, a court has heard. “The girls are treated as though they are a sex thing,” a former Pitcairn woman,

Who are the most successful plaintiffs firms in the land? For the first time The American Lawyer has answered that question, identifying the 16 highest-grossing plaintiffs firms in the United States. They are a group diverse in geography–they dot the map from New York to California, Chicago to Florida–and in size. Reaud, Morgan & Quinn

A federal judge has refused to accept a guilty plea from a former America Online employee accused of selling the Internet provider’s customer list to a “spammer,” saying he was unsure a crime had been committed. U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein stopped a Tuesday hearing at which Jason Smathers was to plead guilty to conspiracy

Hyatt Corp. heirs Matthew and Liesel Pritzker have settled a family dispute for close to $1 billion, according to attorneys and a source close to the case. The settlement is about half the amount the siblings were seeking in a lawsuit accusing their father and others of looting their trust funds and leaving them out