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Herbert Geer Archive

Page 1 of 11

AAR Voluntary Redundancies; Rumour Some Staff Were ‘Invited’ to Accept

29 June 2009

Earlier in the year, AAR announced a voluntary redundancy scheme. It was revealed over the weekend that some 100 AAR staff accepted the offer, from all areas of the firm. What was not reported w...

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Bank Sector Redundancy Explosion: Westpac Bank Prepares to Sack Hundreds of Staff

24 January 2012

Following last week's news that ANZ has fired approximately 130 employees apparently after periodically sacking more workers in the months prior to the announcement, comes news that Westpac looks s...

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Clifford Chance Takes No Chances on Mallesons as Merger Talks Break Down

9 December 2008

A top-secret merger proposal between Clifford Chance and Mallesons Stephen Jaques, which was unknown to many partners in both firms, has broken down, it has emerged. A new merger proposal, comin...

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Dollar Bills, Are You For Sha-Ria(L)? Aussie Firms Flock to Islamic Finance

3 June 2010

NB - FIRM SPY IS NON-DENOMINATIONAL Last week our friends at Lawyers Weekly published an interesting article entitled Islamic finance:the next big thing?. In the opening grab, author Claire Chaf...

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KPMG Announces Redundancies; 99 Sackings Take Total to 200 Lay Offs

8 April 2009

It is with a sense of regret that the Firm Spy, cap-in-hand, confirms a prediction we made off-handedly in February this year. On 14 February, we wrote a short post updating readers about the ph...

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Ex-Baker & McKenzie Partner Anthony Brearley an Alleged Fugitive

28 July 2009

You do not want to be an alleged fraudster in Dubai. The tribulations of convicted frauster George Atkinson and his 'living hell' spending six 'spirit breaking' years in a Dubai jail illustrate thi...

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Run of the Milliner; Mallesons/Clifford Chance Merger One Step Closer

23 October 2009

If you're still doubting the imminent prospect of a Mallesons/Clifford Chance global merger, take one look at the Run of the Milliner. Our favourite Chief Executive Partner, who a remarkable 58 of you think is a part-time warlock (see poll, to the right), featured in an article earlier today in The Australian about changes to lawyer remuneration in which the following was said: Mr Milliner said the speed at which Australian firms abandoned "lock-step" salaries for all employed lawyers with the same years of service would be strongly influenced by international practice. He said the use of lock-step salary setting had been declining at major British law firms before the global financial crisis and there was no reason why this trend should not continue once the global recovery bec...

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The Phillips Fox(t)rot; Adelaide Office Gains Financial Independence

26 March 2010

We reported last week that full merger talks between Australian law firm DLA Phillips Fox and its international affiliate DLA Piper had been thwarted. That is, the incoming Phillips Fox Chief Executive Partner Tony Holland hadn't yet had an opportunity to get across "the financials" of the merger. Tony's task of getting across these mysterious "financials", apparently just got a little easier. If our anonymous DLAPF spy is to be believed, he ought to consign the figures coming from his Adelaide office to the bin: DLAPF/DLA Piper merger? DLAPF Adelaide is now financially independent of the wider firm. It happened a couple of months ago, very quietly. Very quietly indeed! We certainly haven't read anything in the press. This news is at odds with the firm's Australian website which pr...

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PWC Staff ‘Twiddle Thumbs’ As Partners Attend Boozy Spring Carnival

5 November 2009

Hilarious anonymous tip from a PWC spy earlier today: So, I have been at PwC for a few years now... Melbourne Cup came around and my Big 4 friends told me of all the great parties their firms ar...

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Free-loader; Baker & McKenzie Involved in Sydney Office Grab

19 August 2009

Baker & McKenzie is reported as being in the hunt for more office space in Sydney. As noted by the Sydney Morning Herald: Hopes that Sydney's office vacancy rate will not reach double-digits a...

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