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Three prominent law firms help Cerberus in acquiring Chrysler

Schulte Roth & Zabel, LLP, along with Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, LLP, will represent Cerberus on its acquisition of the Chrysler division of DaimlerChrysler. Both, Schulte Roth and Milbank have advised Cerberus on other acquisitions in the past. Daimler Chrysler will be represented by Shearman & Sterling, LLP, which has been advising the company for a long time now.

Cerberus which focuses on M&A and buy-outs will acquire about 80%, while DaimlerChrysler will retain 19.9% stake in the deal. The deal ends the 1998 merger between Germany-based Daimler-Benz, and U.S.-based Chrysler Corporation.

Schulte Roth has more than 450 lawyers providing services in various areas including business transactions, finance, investment management, and litigation, besides its pro bono activities. Milbank Tweed is headquartered in New York, with offices in Los Angeles, London, and Frankfurt, among other places. The firm provides services to many well known financial, industrial, and corporate entities. Shearman & Sterling is more than 130 years old, and serves governments, corporations, and financial organizations across the world.

05-16-2007

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Ballard Spahr fortifies Arizona presence

Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, LLP, continues to fortify its presence in Arizona. The firm recently added William Hicks and Nancy Lashnits, two new partners in its Public Finance Department. The duo comes from Snell & Wilmer to Ballard's Phoenix office.

Hicks is a top public finance attorney in Arizona. He has wide experience in the areas of tax-exempt finance, general corporate law, and finance. A former attorney in the Office of Chief Counsel in the Internal Revenue Service, Lashnits practices in federal income tax, municipal financing, and low-income housing tax credits. The firm hopes to leverage from the duo's expertise in public finance and tax practices.

Earlier, the firm added five Labor, Employment & Immigration attorneys from rival law firm Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart PC. They are partners Julie A. Pace and David A. Selden, of counsel Eva Shih Herrera, and associates Jodi Hill and Heidi Nunn-Gilman, all formerly of Ogletree Deakins.

Ballard set up its Phoenix shop in August 2006 with two lawyers - Steve Savage and Karen McConnell. The firm's Phoenix office having 18 attorneys presently hopes to increase its attorney head count to 30 by year end. It concentrates on real estate, land use, environmental issues, business litigation, and labor and immigration matters.

05-16-2007

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Squire, Sanders & Dempsey expands energy practice

Two energy veterans are joining global law firm Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, LLP's Denver office to boost its regional energy practice.

Gregory E. Sopkin and James D. Albright, the experts in the field, are expected to bring a combination of wide industry knowledge and experience of regulatory representation to the Law Firm.

Before joining Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, Sopkin chaired the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. As PUC chairman, Sopkin helped create policies affecting many segments of Colorado's public utility industry. On the other hand, Albright who represented Xcel Energy Services Inc. and its predecessors as assistant general manager for 11 years, handled the firm's natural gas matters.

Squire Sanders provides legal counsel to its global clients through the Firm's 30 offices in 14 countries.

05-15-2007

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Allen & Overy to establish presence in Riyadh

Allen & Overy is looking at establishing practice in Riyadh in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The firm will associate with Abdulaziz AlGasim law firm in Riyadh to expand its services in the Middle East. The move reflects a natural extension for the firm since it has been handling transactions in Saudi Arabia for more than 30 years now. It will also enable the firm to provide more integrated services to both, global and regional clients.

The new office, slated to start operations in July 2007, will coordinate with Allen & Overy's offices in London, Dubai, Tokyo, and New York which have been engaged in the firm's transactions in Saudi Arabia. Julian Johnson, partner with the firm, and experienced in Islamic finance, project finance, and general corporate work, will be based in the Riyadh office once it is operational.

Allen & Overy is a large international law firm with around 5000 staff. This includes nearly 450 partners working in the firm's 24 centers worldwide. The Abdulaziz AlGasim is a Saudi law firm focusing on areas including Islamic finance, corporate matters, and capital markets, all in keeping with the Saudi law. The clients of the firm include most major banks and Saudi financial organizations.

05-15-2007

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Lawyer couple accused of insider trading

A lawyer couple - Randi Collotta, 30, former Morgan Stanley and Co. employee in Manhattan and her husband, Christopher Collotta, 34, into private practice -has been convicted of conspiracy and securities fraud. The Collotta couple received $9,000 in kickbacks for providing inside tips. Their alleged `help' saw amassing of $600,000 in illegal profits, declared Andrew Fish, Assistant U.S. Attorney. Altogether, 13 people have been criminally charged in the $15 million scam involving top-tier U.S. financial firms.

The couple will receive their sentence September 7 as set by U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero.

Even though the couple can escape the jail for $250,000 bail each, the Collottas have agreed not to appeal any sentences for less than a year and a half. Randi Collotta was serving Morgan Stanley's global compliance division as an associate at the time of the conspiracy. In September 2004, Randi Collotta agreed providing her husband, Christopher, with inside information. She passed information on pending mergers and acquisitions between September 2004 and July 2005.

The information Randi collected from her Morgan Stanley office, was passed onto Marc Jurman, a broker in Florida. Jurman, who had pleaded guilty to conspiracy and securities fraud March, amassed $38,500 and more in illegal profits after Collotta passed him the inside information based on which he traded securities.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) described the case as one of the most pervasive Wall Street insider trading rings since the 1980s. It said that Wall Street insider trading rings and its 'ringleaders' hide their actions through hush-hush meetings, 'disposable cell phones, and secret codes.'

Meanwhile, Jennifer Wang, who also worked at Morgan Stanley, and her husband, Ruben Chen, of New Jersey were charged in another insider-trading case with conspiracy and securities fraud. While serving Morgan Stanley as a vice president, Wang allegedly made $600,000 on trading based on material, nonpublic information she stole from the company. She and her husband Chen, former vice president at ING Investment Management Americas were each released on $2 million bail. Chen, however, is also required to submit to electronic monitoring for his whereabouts.

05-14-2007

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O'Melveny & Myers strengthens Financial Restructuring Group

Keeping an eye on the expanding restructuring market, international law firm O'Melveny & Myers, LLP, announced the strengthening of its Financial Restructuring Group. The firm is also looking at adding to the strength of its M&A and private equity practice in New York with the new appointments to the group.

O'Melveny & Myers has nearly 1,000 lawyers in 13 offices across the world. The firm provides services in areas including Appellate, Corporate practice, Fund & Investment management, and Intellectual Property. O'Melveny also supports community-driven initiatives and is committed to pro bono work and increasing diversity in the legal profession.

The new additions to the firm's Financial Restructuring Group include Michael J. Sage, former co-chair of the Financial Restructuring Group at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP, and other Stroock partners Gerald C. Bender, Doron Lipshitz, and Patricia M. Perez. Apart from restructuring, the new appointees also have experience in private-equity investments, fund management, and M&A transactions.

O'Melveny's Restructuring Group will be headed by Sage together with San-Francisco-based partner Suzzanne Uhland.

05-14-2007

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Chicago's divorce billboard's 'Life' snuffed

"Life's short. Get a divorce" - a billboard on divorce - had its life cut even shorter by protesting people who found the risqué humor too strong to digest. The Chicago law firm's attorneys Corri Fetman and Kelly Garland who put up the billboard are expectedly protesting and "upset."

The billboard, placed on the top of a parking garage, features the headless torso of a man and a woman in lingerie. People found the phrases in the billboard too light for such a serious decision in life and that it "trivializes divorce."

Attorney Fetman, who feels "violated," claims that her billboard was an attempt to make law advertisement slightly less stereotype. She wanted her ad to reach those people already on the threshold of ending their marriage. "Be honest with yourself and with your spouse," she claims adding, "a billboard isn't going to make a person get divorced."

However, city workers pulled the ad down after a week of complaints and protests from neighbors and from other attorneys. Several attorneys were of the opinion that the ad belittled their profession. On the other hand, the lawyers behind the ad claim that the ad fetched good sales as calls spiraled upwards "dramatically" since it was put up last week.

05-11-2007

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