Featured Articles
FIDIC and Recent Infrastructure Developments
Mark Roe
Head of international construction and energy Pinsent Masons
The demand to open construction markets to international competition, to improve quality, timeliness of supply and price, is growing. There has been a noticeable increase in the number of developers, owners and operators who are now looking to use a form of contract familiar to international contractors even on projects being undertaken in their home jurisdictions. In Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia this has meant a substantial increase in the demand for FIDICbased contracts. International construction business can now be conducted via a familiar, respected and widely available legal framework, saving contractors costs associated with unfamiliar procedures. It also provides an improved competitive environment, which in turn gives the employer a better deal. Often it is quality rather than price that is the driver for this change.
Introduction to Environmental Law by Karl Moor
Karl Moor
Vice-president and associate general counsel Southern Company
Environmental law is a complex web made up of statutes, treaties, regulations, executive orders, agency practice, and other legal authorities. Mastering this web, or even a subset of it, could be a life’s work for any attorney. But practising environmental law effectively requires not only a thorough understanding of these legal authorities, but also an understanding of the various fora in which they arise – administrative, judicial, legislative and public policy.
An International Introduction to Aviation
Karl Hennessee
Senior Legal Counsel - Litigation & Regulatory Affairs, Airbus SAS
Events of this past year illustrate yet again the dynamic and complex playing field that aviation lawyers can expect to encounter whether they work in-house or for a law firm. Facing a web of intricate laws and regulations pertaining to everything from airworthiness certification and ownership restrictions to the circulation and filtration of onboard air, aviation lawyers must ever be accomplished in their fields of expertise while remaining prepared to venture into uncharted territories.
Recent Trends in Project Finance
Jamie Logie
No doubt almost all the lawyers featured in the following pages are delighted to be identified as project finance specialists. In a booming global market for project finance, and with 2006 set to continue a six-year upward trend in the volume of funding, leading lawyers in the field will be sought out to assist with increasingly challenging, and interesting, projects in a truly global market. These projects encompass a wide range, from replacement of ageing infrastructure in Western Europe and North America to development and exploitation of natural resources in emerging market economies that have previously barely featured on the radar screens of the international finance communities.
The Changing Landscape of Project Finance
Glenn Gerstell
One of the more fascinating aspects of project finance is that while the financing method itself endures, market forces change the project finance landscape in powerful and unpredictable ways. Entire sectors once condemned to the doldrums by commodity prices, legislative changes or other external factors, have been resurrected in the space of a year or two. Through these fluctuations, project finance has proven itself both powerful and persistent.
The Changing Global Landscape Requires Flexibility and Creativity
Kenneth R Adamo
David M Maiorana
Susan M Gerber
The US patent system is one component in the exploitation and enforcement of intellectual property rights. The US cannot be viewed in isolation from the rest of world, however. When it comes to intellectual property in today’s global economy, more and more US patentees seek and obtain foreign counterpart patents to protect their ideas. The effectiveness of both foreign and domestic patent systems, therefore, can have a great impact on the value and enforcement of US patents.
Different Patent Systems, Similar Controversies
Trevor Cook
Patent litigation rarely makes it to the highest courts anywhere in the world, and the US Supreme Court is no exception. However, for the first time in a generation the Court is taking a real interest in patent matters. Some matters are still the subjects of petitions for certiorari requesting that the Court hear the case, with the Court having already granted certiorari in some, while in others it has requested a brief from the US Government, signalling its interest in the subject matter. Most such cases raise or touch on issues that are already, or are likely to become, matters of controversy in Europe, which makes it interesting to review them from such a perspective.
The Most Controversial Lawyer in United States M&A
Richard Hall
In 2005, I boldly awarded the title of “The Most Significant M&A Lawyer in the United States” to Delaware vicechancellor Leo Strine. On this occasion, I will pursue a more controversial title: “The Most
Controversial M&A Lawyer in the United States”, and I bestow it on Professor Lucian A Bebchuk, from the Harvard Law School.
Recent Developments in Takeover and Squeeze-out Legislation in Austria
Florian Khol
Michael Kutschera
After 18 years of discussions and a two-year transition period, each EU member state had to implement the EU Takeover Directive by May 2006. In connection with this implementation, the Austrian legislation on public takeovers and squeeze-out of minority shareholders has been significantly amended. As a consequence, the common structure of public takeover transactions followed by squeeze-outs has to be reconsidered.
Another Turn of the Wheel For EU Communications Regulation
Colin Long
Natasha Hobday
From digital switchover to mobile roaming and access to next generation networks, from television without frontiers to online content, European commission staff have probed every corner of the EU communications market over the last year or so. Documents updating policies and describing new approaches, with even newer abbreviations, were published, charting shifts in regulatory fashion and, in some cases, the manifestation of old prophecies. Convergence, long predicted, seems finally to have arrived.