Legal Technology Journal

A round up of the latest deals, appointments, hires and IT contracts awarded in private practice.

DEALS AND APPOINTMENTS

Ashurst advised FTSE 100 Autonomy Corporation on a share placing to institutional investors and as UK adviser on its $775m (£558m) acquisition of California-based content management group Interwoven. Corporate partner Nicholas Holmes led the deal, with London head of technology Mark Lubbock advising on IT aspects. The placing raised £222.7m, which will be used to part fund the acquisition. Ashurst also advised on a new revolving credit facility of up to $200m (£141m). Allen & Overy led by London corporate partners Ian Stanley and Ed Barnett advised Interwoven, together with banking partner Andrew Bamber and incentives partner Sylvie Watts. In the US, Autonomy was advised by Morgan Lewis & Bockius led by corporate partner William Myers and Interwoven by Fenwick & West led by corporate partners David Michaels and William Hughes.

Clifford Chance advised German service and systems provider SAG GmbH on the second generation outsourcing of its IT department to Hewlett Packard (HP). Frankfurt IT and outsourcing partner Florian Schmitz led the deal, assisted by associates Michael Heise and Nikolaus Krienke. SAG was advised internally by in-house lawyer Claudia Rützel and HP was represented by its in-house team.

Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz has been instructed to advise Indian technology outsourcing company Satyam Computer Services – dubbed ‘India’s Enron’ - to defend it from US litigation. Litigation partners Warren Stern, George Conway, Wayne Carlin and Martin Arms are advising alongside corporate partner Adam Emmerich. Satyam is facing a raft of shareholder suits after its founder Ramalinga Raju admitted falsifying the company’s accounts for years, inflating the reported cash and bank balances of the company by $1bn (£660m). Top Indian law firm Amarchand & Mangaldas & Suresh A Shroff & Co has been appointed to advise. US firm Latham & Watkins is advising long term client Satyam in ongoing talks with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Orange UK has completed its newly-expanded panel with new places awarded to Beachcroft, Ward Hadaway, Shepherd & Wedderburn, Kidd Rapinet and Northern Ireland firm Worthingtons. Long-term advisers Olswang and Field Fisher Waterhouse retained their place alongside Baker & McKenzie and Mayer Brown. Bevan Brittan and Carter Lemon Camerons – both of which provided regional property advice – lost their place on the panel. The remainder of the panel is made up of Burges Salmon, Cobbetts, TLT and Eversheds.

HIRES

Speechly Bircham has bolstered its IP Technology & Commercial practice with the hire of two new partners. Nathalie Moreno joins from Beachcroft where she was a partner heading the international technology team. Vinod Bange joins from Eversheds, where he was a senior associate and head of the data privacy group in London.

Nabarro has swelled its IT and communications practice with the hire of Boyes Turner partner Geoff Mendelsohn, who headed the IT litigation team. The hire takes the headcount in the team to four partners and nine associates.

IT CONTRACTS AWARDED

Stephenson Harwood has selected DTE’s Axiom time recording solution via UK distributor Phoenix Business Solutions. Director of information technology Chris Petrie said: “The DTE Axiom solution is feature rich and compliments our IT desktop environment, our business continuity plans and enables our fee earners to capture time on the move.”

Field Fisher Waterhouse is set to save a seven figure sum by appointing Right Document Solutions to deploy 40+ Ricoh MFDs and Printroom Systems with the latest Equitrac Professional cost recovery and print management software along with eCopy scan management.