Happy New Year and welcome back to the Fides Weekly Update! Here is the first round-up of key news in legal and compliance this year – don’t forget to scroll down for the Movers & Shakers of the week.
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This week:
1. Deutsche staff get a good start to the New Year
After a year of heavy cost-cutting measures and lacklustre payouts at Deutsche Bank, it seems this year will start off with a bang as the bank’s top boss declares higher bonuses and pay rises are on the cards.
As reported in the FT earlier this week, chief executive at Deutsche Bank John Cryan, in an interview with Germany’s Börsen-Zeitung newspaper, admitted that for the first time since his leadership at the German bank, they intend to “return to our normal compensation programmes”.
Deutsche is planning to wait until the investment bank’s financials are reported and bonus figures have been allocated by competitor institutions, for which it is speculated Goldman Sachs usually delivers first and sets the benchmark.
Although staff members aren’t expecting mammoth salary and bonus figures this year, especially as the investment banking division has seen a drop in market share in recent years, compensation is expected to be a serious boost compared to 2016, where performance-related bonuses were cut by as much as 80% across the bank.
More to come on financial postings and bonus figures in the coming weeks.
Movers & Shakers of the week
Panel Watch
Metro Bank adds nine new firms to its lending and securities panel
Appointments
Ex-Slaughters lawyer joins Inflexion as first General Counsel
Andrew Stevens is to become the first General Counsel of private equity house Inflexion.
Weil appoints two partners to lead Asia operations as managing partner steps down
Tim Gardner and Charles Ching with manage the US firm’s Asia operations following the retirement of Akiko Mikumo.
Moves
White & Case bolsters UK Corporate practice with Linklaters hire
Daniel Turgel joins White & Case from Linklaters where he was a senior associate.
Linklaters boosts Washington DC presence with Bankruptcy hire
Linklaters has expanded its Washington DC office with the hire of Jones Day bankruptcy partner Amy Edgy.
Simmons hires CMS London IP partner for group launch
Intellectual property partner Kevin Cordina joins Simmons & Simmons, reuniting with former head of legacy Olswang’s European patent litigation team Michael Burdon who moved to the firm last year.
K&L Gates takes three-partner energy disputes team from Ince & Co.
The trio includes former global energy head Jeremy Farr, Charles Lockwood and Clare Kempkens.
Mergers & Alliances
Eversheds Sutherland seals full merger with Dutch network firm
Partner Promotions
Hogan Lovells makes up five in London in biggest global partnership round for six years