Herbert Smith Freehills Podcasts Herbert Smith Freehills Podcasts

Tony Damien and Andrew Rich chat about stub equity, including a couple of interesting recent developments in Australia.

In this 24th episode of our series of commercial litigation update podcasts, we look at the Civil Justice Council's review of the litigation sector, a recent development in a case on representative actions, an important recent Supreme Court decision on force majeure clauses, and a couple of cases on privilege and disclosure. This episode is hosted by Maura McIntosh, a professional support consultant in our litigation team, who is joined by Emma Deas, a disputes partner, and Charlotte Benton, a senior associate in our disputes team.

Below you can find links to our blog posts on the developments and cases covered in this podcast.

• Civil Justice Council establishes review of third party litigation funding https://hsfnotes.com/litigation/2024/04/24/civil-justice-council-establishes-review-of-third-party-litigation-funding/

• Representative actions under CPR 19.8: High Court to consider important questions relating to funding and damages for class members https://hsfnotes.com/litigation/2024/04/05/representative-actions-under-cpr-19-8-high-court-to-consider-important-questions-relating-to-funding-and-damages-for-class-members/

• Force majeure: Supreme Court finds no obligation on party seeking to rely on force majeure clause to accept counterparty’s offer of non-contractual performance https://hsfnotes.com/litigation/2024/05/15/force-majeure-supreme-court-finds-no-obligation-on-party-seeking-to-rely-on-force-majeure-clause-to-accept-counterpartys-offer-of-non-contractual-performance/

• Collateral waiver of privilege: High Court finds disclosure of chronology prepared by lawyer results in broader waiver https://hsfnotes.com/litigation/2024/04/08/collateral-waiver-of-privilege-high-court-finds-disclosure-of-chronology-prepared-by-lawyer-results-in-broader-waiver/

• High Court considers whether third party’s documents are in party’s practical control for disclosure purposes https://hsfnotes.com/litigation/2024/04/10/high-court-considers-whether-third-partys-documents-are-in-partys-practical-control-for-disclosure-purposes/

In this episode Veronica Roberts is joined by Laura Connell, Partner and Investor at Atomico, a venture capital firm investing in tech. Laura shares her thoughts on the importance of building networks, finding great mentors in the people you respect most in the industry, and how continuous learning and seeking to find new teachers at every step of the leadership journey is key to success.

In this episode, we finish our cross examination of Andy Penn, previously CEO of Telstra and more recently the Chair of the Government’s Expert Advisory Board . The conversation just gets better...

Andy makes some insightful comments about the similarities between our physical world and our digital world, and how this should guide our measure of success. We also take a closer look at the Cyber Strategy, the value in placing responsibility on those best placed to take responsibility, what does "good" look like, the value in managing data holdings, threat sharing / locking, the benefit of transparency and reporting (rather than banning extortion).

Andy also makes some incredibly relevant (and sobering) observations on the impact that compute power and quantum computing will have on our security settings (“…a Y2K event when don’t know the date…”).

Finally, I ask Andy “what makes a great lawyer”? Luckily, we come out of that question relatively unscathed.

This is Episode 6 of our podcast series. Cross examining Andy Penn. Here we go…

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Cyber Risk Survey 2024 now live!

Following the success of our inaugural Cyber Risk Survey in 2023, we are once again surveying in-house lawyers to better understand their cyber-related experiences and concerns. This year, our survey is going global! If you are an in-house lawyer in Australia, Asia, the UK, Europe, the Middle East or the US, we would love your insights!

Complete our survey here: hsfuk.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8fdxhAEb0VCmAUS

Can the corporate veil be protected?

In our latest podcast, Kate Wilson, a Professional Support Consultant in our London Real Estate team, is joined by Alex Wright, a Senior Associate in our Corporate Real Estate team, and Somers Brewin, Vice-President in the Transactional Risk team at Lockton, to discuss the potential liabilities that can arise on corporate acquisitions pursuant to the Building Safety Act 2022, and the ways in which the insurance market is adapting to address these risks.

In the latest episode of our latest Herbert Smith Freehills UK public M&A podcast series, we discuss competing takeover offers. We have seen a significant uptick in competitive situations in recent months – we saw just one target receive firm competing offers in 2023, but have already seen four in the first four months of 2024. In this episode, we discuss:

• Why we are seeing more competitive situations
• How the put up or shut up (PUSU) deadline works
• What happens if one or both bidders need regulatory clearance and
• How competitive situations get resolved.

Speakers Mark Bardell, Robert Moore and Antonia Kirkby