The long wave of the financial crisis also falls on the law firms. They are forced to check the strategies and to reorganize the internal assets. Therefore, lawyers that till yesterday were initialling banking or capital market operations of million hundreds, today they dedicate themselves to full time corporate and banking restructuring and to bankruptcy in general. That is because the business law firms must square with the paralysis of the compelling departments: and if on one hand, they announce that there will be no resignations, on the other hand, they are bound to find the way to reclaim the losses. That, as it comes out of the last data Mergermarket, no one have spared (ItaliaOggi of last October 9th). From Bonelli Erede Pappalardo e Chiomenti that have not announced movements and at the moment prefer not to make known their strategies. Up to Gianni Origoni Grippo, that had reacted instead few weeks ago, initialling an alliance to strengthen the company criminal law.
But we see how the main law firms with head office in Italy and the boutiques specialized in m&a are moving. The business law firms. For Nctm, that had just improved in corporate, in this moment is important that the lawyers put to use all of their expertise, because the legislation is changed. "It is clear that today a banking lawyer must deal with banking restructuring. This means that the financial crisis has modified the nature of legislation, but did not engraved prominently on our activity", managing partner Alberto Toffoletto explains, "our law firm had not developed a particular exposure toward the banking or the capital market, and we had preserved strong the litigation and bankruptcy areas, defined anti-cyclical." Simmons & Simmons is investing in restructuring since a long time, and it plans, in this moment of crisis, to get its results. "We have created in 2003 a transversal area that involves litigation, corporate and finance departments", partner Antonio Lombardo says, "today that the credit access is narrow, it is clear that m&a operations decrease and restructuring ones increase. For us, therefore, the job surely won't decrease”.
Also for Freshfields the insolvency will become crucial. "The area that had suffered the worse blows is the capital market, where we have not particularly invested ", partner Raffaele Lener affirms, " we rest with the same organization at the moment and we’ll see how the crisis evolves. The certain thing is that there won't be any resignation." Dla Piper, considering the real estate and banking immobility, is aiming instead at the white collar crime, and that is the company criminal responsibility. "This practice is working a lot of and we think about widening to other professionals in the brief period." For Baker & McKenzie the activity moved to restructuring. "In this moment the area of companies in crisis assistance is the most active", partner Aurelio Giovannelli affirms, "our work is moving in less physiological domains to the crisis, as restructuring and bankruptcy." Norton Rose instead announces a strong increase of m&a activity and a hike of work in banking, "especially regarding the project financing, particularly energy, and the export finance", managing partner Paolo Daviddi explains. Pavia e Ansaldo instead, relies on the future potentialities of capital market. "We think especially to the buy-back and the opa from who has the availability of financial resources", managing partner Roberto Zanchi says, "as much as not only to the actual very downcast values, but also to more elevated values a lot of societies have become desirable for friendly or hostile operations."
The boutiques. Also the specialized boutiques in m&a reorganize themselves. Calmetta is focusing its resources on the energy and maritime domain, while Nunziante Magrone is focusing on bankruptcy, restructuring and litigation.
