{"id":31,"date":"2007-01-25T22:10:16","date_gmt":"2007-01-25T22:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/2007\/01\/well-and-truly-international\/"},"modified":"2007-01-26T19:06:00","modified_gmt":"2007-01-26T19:06:00","slug":"well-and-truly-international","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/2007\/01\/well-and-truly-international\/","title":{"rendered":"Well and truly international"},"content":{"rendered":"

Labaton Sucharow & Rudoff LLP<\/a> issued a press release earlier this month (10 Jan 07, here<\/a> and here<\/a>), announcing its alliance with the Italian firm of Pietro Adami<\/a>, which is in line with Labaton’s earlier alliance with the firm TILP International<\/a> of Germany (31 May 06, here<\/a> and here<\/a>). That alliance was then billed as “the world’s first<\/em> truly international [securities litigation] practice” (WV&Z’s emphasis). Schiffrin Barroway Topaz & Kessler LLP<\/a>, as it now has become, followed with its alliance with another German firm, Winheller Rechtsanw\u00c3\u00a4lte<\/a> (3 Oct 06, here<\/a> and here<\/a>), and then, as now widely reported, Cohen Milstein Hausfeld & Toll PLLC<\/a> with its announcement of going one further and opening an office here in London (16 Oct 06).<\/p>\n

Since then it’s been Cohen Milstein primarily who has been held out as the “leading proponent of expanding the American plaintiffs’ bar into the European legal market” (source<\/a>, with thanks to PointofLaw.com<\/a>), certainly on the face of it on press inches generated. It prompted articles on the likely effects of plaintiff firms coming over to ply their trade here and quotes from other firms in response that they would not follow, or would but not with their own office here. (See this previous post<\/a> and just two of many examples more: The American Lawyer<\/a>, which mentions all three firms, and the running coverage of Lies, Damn Lies, & Forward Looking Statements<\/a> on the three.) And here’s the latest one commenting on a European move, Todd S. Collins of Berger & Montague PC<\/a> in Financial News<\/a>: “It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to be necessary to bring lawsuits in more parts of the world. We have consulted European lawyers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the time is coming.”<\/p>\n

WV&Z was surprised to learn then that Murray Frank & Sailer LLP<\/a> had alliances in place with the very same two firms before<\/em> Labaton had, before the subsequent announcements on partnerships and the following media attention, from which Murray Frank has been notably absent. Murray Frank ran an article<\/a> in the sponsored supplement to the May 2006 issue of Investment & Pensions Europe<\/a> magazine on the benefits of transatlantic alliances, outlining its own “strategic partnerships” with TILP and Adami as examples. The article was written by then-Murray Frank partners Brian P. Murray and Eric J. Belfi. The latter has left that firm: he joined Labaton, on 31 May 2006<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Asked for comment, Murray Frank acknowledged that their alliances pre-date Labaton’s, but also that they are now defunct, as of May 2006, though their international scope of practice very much remains. Labaton acknowledged that Murray Frank was there first, but in effect made it clear that the emphasis in its claim should be on the nature of the international practice and the depth of its relationships with its foreign partners. It is here submitted then that, semantics aside, it’s simply truly<\/em> unfortunate for Murray Frank it has so far missed the attention others have received collectively and individually recently.<\/p>\n

In separate news, Heller Ehrman LLP<\/a> has also announced<\/a> a London office, its first in Europe. One of the firm’s practice areas is securities litigation, but the London office is to focus on corporate, real estate and anti-trust and competition, at least initially. In a statement relating to the news of having landed Lawrence W. Keeshan, formerly PricewaterhouseCoopers<\/a>‘ Global General Counsel and a senior litigation partner at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP<\/a>, to head its securities litigation practice, Heller Ehrman chairman Matthew L. Larrabee noted<\/a>: “We are incredibly pleased to have Larry join us at a time when we are pursuing a strategy of growth in Asia and Europe.”<\/p>\n

What’s more: <\/strong>Pietro Adami is mentioned at The 10b-5 Daily<\/a> (in its ‘Curiouser and Curiouser Archives’) in connection with a US securities class action against the Italian state<\/a>. (The two US plaintiffs’ firms acting as lead counsel in that case are Pomerantz Haudek Block Grossman & Gross LLP<\/a> and Berger & Montague PC<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Labaton Sucharow & Rudoff LLP issued a press release earlier this month (10 Jan 07, here and here), announcing its alliance with the Italian firm of Pietro Adami, which is in line with Labaton’s earlier alliance with the firm TILP International of Germany (31 May 06, here and here). That alliance was then billed as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}