United Kingdom

Our key experience includes advising:

HM Treasury on the transfer of Bradford & Bingley's UK and Isle of Man retail deposit business along with its branch network to Abbey National plc and the transfer of the remainder of Bradford & Bingley's business into public ownership. 

HM Treasury on Northern Rock, including the special financial assistance extended to Northern Rock, the M&A process seeking new investors in Northern Rock, the bringing of Northern Rock into temporary public ownership and judicial review proceedings relating to the compensation arrangements. We worked closely with HM Treasury's in-house lawyers.

BHP Billiton on the all share inter-conditional offers for Rio Tinto Limited and Rio Tinto plc, including the committed bank financing facility of US$55 billion put in place in connection with offers. This is one of the biggest ever public takeovers to date.

Sempra Metals Limited in its successful defeat of HMRC's appeal to the House of Lords in a test case against HMRC in the ACT group litigation (in which we also represented the Deutsche Morgan Grenfell Group Plc in its successful appeal to the House of Lords). The House of Lords upheld the Court of Appeal's decision in favour of our client that companies such as Sempra should recover compound, rather than simple, interest on amounts paid by way of ACT. The judgment is significant as it remedies a number of perceived defects in the English law on interest and very considerably widens the circumstances in which compound interest can now be claimed.

Lend Lease on its selection as preferred development partner to develop the London 2012 Olympic Village at Stratford City, London. The development of the site will be in two phases.  Phase One, which has an estimated value of £2 billion involves the development of approximately 3,800 dwellings and related accommodation that will become the Olympic Village. Phase Two will involve the refurbishment of the Village after the Games and the development of up to another 500,000 square metres to complete the regeneration of this area of Stratford City. Phase Two has an estimated value of £3.5 billion.