Practical LawConferences

Vivienne Artz is a Managing Director and Head of International for the IP and O&T Law Group in the General Counsel’s Office in London.

The International team, with lawyers in London, Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan, is responsible for all intellectual property, technology, e-commerce, general commercial/procurement/outsourcin, data privacy, banking secrecy and data security, electronic trading and order routing, and market data legal issues, across all business areas in the EMEA and APAC regions.

Prior to joining Citigroup in 2000, Vivienne worked in private practice in London.

Vivienne chairs the AFME Data Protection Working Group and is an active participant on the E-Commerce Group and the Data Protection Groups at the BBA and CBI, as well as a Steering Committee member for the Technology Discussion Group. Vivienne is co-chair of the Citi Women Network in the UK, and leads the Legal Diversity Committee for EMEA.

Claude is Deputy General Counsel at Alliance Healthcare, the Pharmaceutical Wholesale and International Retail division of Walgreens Boots Alliance (Nasdaq:  WBA), the first global pharmacy-led, health and wellbeing enterprise in the world.  Prior to joining WBA in 2012, Claude spent nine years at Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest brewer, in a range of corporate, zone and country roles in Europe, Asia and the Americas.  He qualified as a solicitor with Simmons & Simmons (Corporate) in 2000, following seats in London and Hong Kong.  Claude studied French and Spanish at Oxford University and plays the piano and organ.

Andrew is a corporate insurance lawyer with expertise in a wide range of insurance transactional and advisory work. Experience includes insurance M&A, regulatory matters, insurance policy negotiation (acting for both insurers and insureds), reinsurance and distribution agreements. Andrew frequently advises on the W&I aspects of M&A transactions and is a recognised expert on director liability protection (including director & officer (D&O) and POSI insurance and associated director indemnification issues). Andrew is a leading practitioner in the field of insurance de-risking solutions for pension schemes (including longevity swaps and pension scheme buy-ins and buy-outs)

Andrew is Editor of Butterworths Insurance Law Handbook and a contributor to the ICSA Directors’ Handbook – chapters on D&O Insurance and director indemnification. Andrew is recognised in respect of Insurance Corporate and Regulatory in The Legal 500 UK 2015. Andrew is a member of the City of London Law Society Insurance Law Committee.

Jonathan was previously Chief Counsel of the Thomson Reuters Legal business and is now General Counsel of This is Global. During his time at Thomson Reuters Jonathan lead the cross functional integration of his previous business following its acquisition. He was also part of the Executive Leadership Team that integrated Practical Law into Thomson Reuters. Jonathan has worked for a variety of organisations from large international corporates to start ups and private equity backed businesses. He started his career at Charles Russell Speechlys and he has undertaken a significant number of M&A transactions across a range of sectors.

This is Global is one of the world’s leading media and entertainment groups with three divisions; Global Radio, Global Television and Global Entertainment. Global Radio is the UK’s biggest commercial radio company and home to the country’s three biggest commercial radio brands Capital, Heart and Classic FM. Together with Capital XTRA, LBC, Smooth, Radio X and Gold, these brands reach 24 million people every week on the radio, 10 million unique users every month on Global’s digital platforms and six million people on Global’s social media channels.

Alison is a competition law specialist, recommended in the field by Chambers, Legal 500 and Who’s Who Legal. According to Chambers (2015),“She is very bright, gets across all the material in a case and really mucks in with the client team, which makes a huge difference” while Legal 500 describes her as “very bright indeed – focused and shrewd” (2015). Who’s Who Legal (2016) describes her as a “rapidly rising junior”, who is“practical, discerning and responsive”.

Alison qualified as a solicitor in 1999 and was called to the bar in 2011. She has successfully guided clients through all aspects of competition regulation, including merger approvals, antitrust investigations and litigation, both at domestic and EU levels.　 Her work often involves analysing the relationship between domestic and EU law, and she has advised both the CMA and BIS in this area.

She has particular expertise in merger control and is co-author (with Alistair Lindsay) of The EU Merger Regulation: Substantive Issues (Sweet & Maxwell, 4th edition, 2012), a leading textbook on merger control issues.

Lucinda Case is now Managing Director for the UK & Ireland Legal business of Thomson Reuters, having recently moved from her role as Vice President, Customer Segments & Strategy. Prior to taking on this role at the end of 2014, Lucinda worked for four years in New York where she was Vice President, Editorial, for Practical Law US (a Thomson Reuters business) and then MD of the business.

Before moving to the US, Lucinda held management positions for Practical Law in London. She joined Practical Law in 2006 having worked in knowledge management for Clifford Chance and Freshfields. She qualified as a solicitor with Slaughter and May in 1988 and then spent time with UBS in London as an investment banker. A major driver for Lucinda’s career has been a belief that there is a more efficient way of delivering legal services, which is why she moved into knowledge management and then to Practical Law.

Lucinda is an advocate of greater diversity in the senior ranks of law firms and corporations. She is a member of the London Women’s Forum and a mentor for the Thomson Reuters Emerging Women in leadership scheme.

John is a partner of McMillan LLP (Toronto, Canada), where he focuses his practice on M&A transactions. He has extensive experience advising a diverse group of clients on domestic and cross-border acquisitions and divestitures and the legal requirements for establishing new businesses in Canada. For seven years, John chaired a working group of Canadian M&A deal lawyers that studied and developed reports for the American Bar Association’s M&A Committee on trends in deal terms used in Canadian private company acquisitions.  Who’s Who Legal and other directories rank John as a leading M&A lawyer, and report that  John is “top notch by all accounts”, “very client focused” and “always delivers”.

Jonathan Cope is Managing Counsel, Group Legal at RSA Insurance Group plc, the international FTSE 100 insurance group.  Jonathan advises the group’s senior executive leadership on key legal, regulatory and business issues, and reports to the Chief Legal Officer and Company Secretary.  He has worked at RSA since 2013 and has experience of all kinds of legal matters relevant to international financial services groups.

Jonathan has played a key role implementing RSA’s recent international disposals as part of its strategic review; he was the lead RSA lawyer on the sales of RSA businesses in 13 countries.  Jonathan spent 18 months working in the Emerging Markets management team alongside the Head of M&A, liaising with regional and country CEOs.

Jonathan qualified as a lawyer at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP, and spent several years working as a private equity M&A lawyer at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP and Weil, Gotshal & Manges in London.  Jonathan is also a qualified company secretary with the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators.

Mary is a former practicing attorney who heads AIG’s Global Mergers & Acquisitions Insurance Group, specializing in Warranties & Indemnities Insurance, Tax Insurance and other insurance solutions to facilitate mergers and acquisitions. Mary joined AIG in 2011 after spending 15 years with Aon where she was Managing Director of Aon’s Private Equity & Transaction Solutions Group. Prior to joining Aon, Mary was an associate at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius where she specialized in mergers and acquisitions, securities and general corporate law. Mary earned her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and her B.A. from Juniata College.

Simon Enoch, 55, is a solicitor and company secretary with over 25 years’ experience of Corporate issues including joint ventures, M&A and  high profile corporate public relations in many European jurisdictions, the US, Japan and Australia for a number of International Companies including Kingfisher. He qualified as a solicitor in 1988

He has been the Company Secretary and General Legal Counsel at Darty plc since the demerger from Kingfisher in 2003.

Craig is Senior M&A Counsel at British American Tobacco.  Prior to joining BAT in 2012 Craig was a Senior Associate in the Corporate department at Allen & Overy where he worked on a range of high profile M&A deal and other corporate transactions.  During his time at A&O, Craig spent time on secondment at both GlaxoSmithKline and Petro-Canada. In addition to his role at BAT, Craig is a trustee for London Parks and Green Spaces Forum, a charity which supports public green spaces in London.

Vicky joined Thomson Reuters in 2008. As VP, Associate General Counsel, IP & Science, she handles and manages all corporate and commercial legal aspects of the business, with specific input on major projects and strategic ventures.  In addition, Vicky manages a team of lawyers supporting the IP and Science sector businesses across the globe. Her legal experience covers a wide range of in-house legal and compliance matters including M&A, commercial contracts and dispute resolution. Vicky trained and practiced at Slaughter and May prior to joining Thomson Reuters.  Vicky is a graduate of Oxford University and Nottingham Law School.

David Jackson is Global Head of Principal M&A Legal at Barclays, leading a team of ten lawyers who are responsible for buying and selling companies and businesses across the bank.  The team is also responsible for delivering the M&A execution aspects of structural reform, and also leads legal work on corporate joint ventures and principal investments.

Having trained and worked for 10 years at Freshfields, David joined Barclays in 2007 and worked in the Principal M&A Legal team on a range of matters including the sale in 2009 of Barclays Global Investors to BlackRock, the acquisition of the US part of Lehmann in 2008 and acquisitions of banks in Russia and Indonesia.  In 2010, David moved to the Investment Bank where he was responsible for legal coverage of private equity, infrastructure funds and principal investments businesses.  Having worked on the disposal of the PE and funds businesses following the creation of Barclays Non-Core, David returned to lead the Principal M&A Legal team in 2015.

Erik D. Lazar is Director and founder of Transatlantic Law International based in London, United Kingdom, an innovative global legal services firm which provides a broad range of business law solutions, including  mergers and acquisitions and post  M&A restructuring services,  as well as global labor and employment law through its Labor Law Plus ® division, to multinational and growing companies in more than 95 countries worldwide.

Erik specializes in his own practice in global M&A, management of cross-border projects, including restructuring, international commercial transactions and agreements, and global dispute resolution, as well as global labor and employment law.

A U.S. lawyer by training with over 30 years of experience in international business law, Erik founded the group in 2001 after more than 15 years of international legal and management experience including in European General Counsel positions in Brussels and Luxembourg for Fortune 50 companies.

He has spoken at numerous conferences on topics including global M&A, key issues in international employment law, global corporate governance, managing the in-house legal function and cross-border movement of executives among many others.

He is an honors graduate of Yale University and of the University of California, Hastings College of the Law and is a member of the bars of New York and Massachusetts. He speaks French and German and resides in London.

For further information, see www.transatlanticlaw.com andwww.laborlawplus.com

Vasco Litchfield joined Lazard London in 2004.  He is currently a Managing Director in London, with a particular focus on the support services, distribution, construction and the building materials sectors.

Vasco serves as House Advisor to Aggreko plc, Carillion plc, Diploma plc, Grafton plc, and SIG plc.

Most recently, Vasco has advised Premier Farnell plc on its sale to Avnet Inc (£870m); Bain Capital on the sale of BPL to Creat Group (£820 m); Cinven/CPP on its acquisition of Hotelbeds (€1.2bn); Premier Farnell on the sale of Akron Brass to IDEX ($225m); Wesfarmers on the acquisition of Homebase (£340m); Bain Capital on the sale of Brakes to Sysco ($3.1bn); Investcorp on the sale of Icopal to GAF (c. €1bn); Blackstone and Kirkbi’s acquisition of Armacell (€955m); Paroc’s high yield bond and sale to CVC (€710m); the merger of TUI Travel plc with TUI AG (€6.5bn); the sale of Joris Ide to Kingspan (€315m); the relisting of Pfliederer (PLN 744m), and the sale of Deli to Pontmeyer and NPM.

Since joining he has also advised amongst other projects:  Knauf’s acquisition of Guardian Insulation (US); ETEX’s acquisition of Lafarge gypsum assets (€1.4bn); HSS on its sale to Exponent; Aggreko plc on its acquisition of Poit Energia in Brazil; SSL plc on its sale to Reckitt Benckiser plc; sale of Focus DIY to Asda and Kingfisher; PED (US) on its sale to Wolseley plc; Fiberweb plc on its Brazilian JV and eventual sale of its hygiene business to Evora (Brazil); BSS plc on its sale to Travis Perkins plc; DS Smith plc on its sale of Spicers to Unipapel/Better Capital; Ultragas shipping on its acquisition of a minority stake in Wilson Sons (Brazil); KP1 on its sale to Doughty Hanson; Carillion on its acquisition of Mowlem plc, Alfred McAlpine plc and EAGA plc and the IPO of ISS (DK 9.4bn).

Vasco has also advised on the restructuring of Paroc, Terreal, Fransbonhomme, Consolis, Monier, and the£150m refinancing for Premier Farnell plc (UK); TUI Travel on its £350m convertible bond; KKR’s refinancing of URSA (€320m), and SIG plc on its £350m equity raising and its acquisition of Lariviere (France).

Vasco advised Her Majesty’s Government on the sale of the Tote to Betfred; the sale of the Plasma Resources UK to Bain, and on the IPO of Royal Mail.

Prior to joining Lazard he worked at Baring Brothers in London and Madrid working on numerous clients/transactions in Europe, South Africa, Russia and Brazil.

Michelle is Head of Finance, Strategy and Segments for Thomson Reuters’ Legal business in the UK. The role has seen her working closely with the Leadership team to support delivery of both financial and operational strategy, plan business growth and lead on acquisitions and disposals. After training as an accountant with PwC in London, spending time in both Transaction Services and Financial Services M&A, Michelle joined Virgin Entertainment Group as a Business Analyst. After spending 3 1/2 years here in various Commercial Finance and Group roles, Michelle left for Burberry, where she was the Senior Finance Analyst supporting the product divisions. After her first child, Michelle joined the BBC, where she worked in Corporate Finance, Radio and live music and was involved in the most recent finance transformation project before becoming Finance Director for a selection of operational areas in 2013. After 5 1/2 years with the BBC, Michelle joined Thomson Reuters in 2014.

Michelle lives in London and has three children.

Brigitta is Principal Counsel at ARM supporting the Corporate Development team, Integration Management Office and Finance. Since joining ARM in mid-2014, Brigitta has advised the business on various private company acquisitions and investments by ARM arising globally, including the most recent acquisition of Apical Limited earlier this year. Brigitta’s role includes project managing a wider in house legal team involved in due diligence and planning integration. In 2015 she lead an extensive project management exercise by the legal acquisition team to improve the in house legal processes for acquisitions.

Prior to joining ARM, Brigitta worked as a corporate finance lawyer at Eversheds and Shepherd & Wedderburn.

Ellis Parry started his career as a solicitor in private practice before joining AstraZeneca pharmaceuticals in 2001 as a specialist IT lawyer. Parry became AstraZeneca’s Global Privacy Officer in 2005, leaving to join BP as its Global Lead for Data Privacy in December 2010. At BP, Parry is responsible for devising and implementing BP’s global approach to personal information handling, including the maintenance of BP’s Binding Corporate Rules and their interplay with the principle of ‘accountability’ which it is expected will be made explicit in the GDPR. Parry has an MBA. In 2014 Parry spoke both in the US and EU on the topic of accountability and in 2015 has spoken on the topics of the compliance challenges posed by matrixed international businesses, the private sector’s view of the Freedom of Information Act and is the subject of a Leading Practices Profile by the Association of Corporate Counsel.

Mr. Pearce is a partner in Davis Polk’s Corporate Department, practicing in the London office. He advises corporate, financial sponsor and investment banking clients on public and private mergers and acquisitions and securities offerings and listings.

With almost 20 years of practicing in corporate finance, he has particular experience in advising European and U.S. public companies and their advisers on private M&A transactions, takeovers and equity capital raisings.

He also regularly advises on corporate governance matters and corporate and securities law and regulation, with extensive experience in advising on the U.K. Listing, Prospectus, Disclosure and Transparency Rules and the U.K. Takeover Code.

Brian was the first non-Italian General Counsel for Sorin Group, an Italian listed corporation, and largest European company in its medical devices sector. Sorin Group closed in October 2015 a cross border merger with Cyberonics Inc., a US NASDAQ-listed company and world leader in the treatment of epilepsy, which resulted in the merged company being listed on both the London Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. The deal was the most complex cross border of the year, involving two simultaneous de-listings, and two simultaneous listings on new exchanges of the combined company.

Brian is responsible for all business ethics, compliance and legal matters in this multinational medical device group as well as mergers & acquisitions. Brian combines these responsibilities with a leadership role in business model innovation as well as being responsible for the Group’s extensive intellectual property portfolio. Brian has been recognized for his role leading the Group’s multiple-award-winning Business Ethics and Global Compliance Program.

Brian was previously a Partner Oppenheimer, Wolff & Donnelly LLP, and is the author of ‘Biotechnology Regulation and Practice’ (Palladian, 2001). He obtained his LLB, LLM and post-graduate diploma in Competition Law from the University of London.

Anka Taylor qualified as a solicitor before joining Hiscox Syndicates in Lloyds’ as an underwriter where she underwrote a wide range of risks for Syndicate 33 including professional indemnity, film and TV production risks and major sporting events such as the Olympic Games and Rugby World Cup. She then started  the Hiscox Enterprise Risk account and was at the forefront of early developments in the underwriting of both W&I and tax insurance, before joining Aon as a broker specialising in the same class of business. She has lead the placements of many of the largest W&I and tax risks placed by the Aon UK team and continues her interest in the further innovation and development of these products.

Rachel Canham is Chief Counsel for Mergers & Acquisitions at BT. Rachel leads a team of lawyers advising on BT’s global acquisitions, disposals, joint ventures, investments, intra-group restructurings  and other general corporate advisory work. Rachel is keen on strategy and governance, having created BT’s Handbook to Successful Acquisitions (drawing on lessons learned from previous deals) and BT’s Corporate Trading Policy. Rachel recently led on BT’s £12.5bn deal to acquire EE. Prior to her current role, Rachel was a senior commercial lawyer at BT advising on BT’s major outsourcing contracts and other strategic commercial contracts. Rachel was a private practice corporate lawyer at both Latham & Watkins and Dickson Minto W.S. before joining BT.