Europe

Goldberg Segalla announces partner’s firing on YouTube after he insulted Liverpool fans on camera

A well-known corporate insurance partner in the London office of a U.S. law firm has been publicly fired on YouTube, due to his use of insulting language in front of a video camera after a British soccer match last month. Although Clive O’Connell later apologized for what he said in…

Nov 10, 2015 2:35 PM CST

Hacktivist group’s ‘Million Mask March’ sparks protests at US federal courthouses

A “Million Mask March” on Thursday organized by the hacktivist group Anonymous on the anniversary of a failed British rebellion in 1605 reportedly created chaos in London. But it also sparked apparently non-violent protests in the U.S. by individuals wearing the white mask associated with Anonymous and would-be assassin Guy…

Nov 6, 2015 12:40 PM CST

Goodwin Procter opens Frankfurt office with 4 partners from Ashurst

Goodwin Procter an office in Frankfurt, Germany, with four Ashurst partners. It is the firm’s second European office, David Hashmall, who serves as chairman of the U.S.-based firm, said the German outpost resulted from needs of clients of the firm’s London office, Bloomberg BNA’s Big Law Business blog reports. It…

Nov 5, 2015 3:25 PM CST

Choir of lawyers is a hit at Magna Carta celebration

When the ABA was planning the Opening Session for its London Sessions commemorating the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta this summer, it wanted to strike just the right note for musical interludes. But rather than reach out into the ranks of London's professional ensembles, then-ABA President William C. Hubbard…

Nov 1, 2015 12:50 AM CDT

Polish judge rejects extradition for Polanski; will US continue to pursue case?

An Oscar-winning film director has won another round in a long-standing battle to avoid extradition to the U.S., where he has admitted having unlawful sex with a minor and was convicted in 1977 after fleeing the country. A Polish judge on Friday ruled against extraditing Roman Polanski, whose age is…

Oct 30, 2015 5:00 PM CDT

Reports: Attorney facing disciplinary matter shot bar chairman, then himself, at French courthouse

A French lawyer shot the local bar chairman at a courthouse office on Thursday morning, then turned the gun on himself, news reports say. The gunman, Joseph Scipilliti, is dead, but Henrique Vannier survived being shot multiple times and is hospitalized in critical but stable condition, according to Agence France-Presse,…

Oct 30, 2015 12:25 PM CDT

Refilming ‘Escape from New York’ plot in outer-space setting violated copyright law, court rules

When the French sci-fi film Lockout was released in 2012, critics noticed how similar the storyline was to the 1981 cult classic Escape from New York, albeit now taking place in outer space. A French court saw substantial similarities, too, ruling that those who made the French film plagiarized from…

Oct 16, 2015 1:20 PM CDT

EU court strikes down agreement for digital transfers of personal data to US

The European Court of Justice ruled declared invalid an international agreement for moving its citizens’ digital data to U.S. servers, saying their privacy might be violated—especially by U.S. government surveillance, the New York Times reports. The ruling by the EU’s highest court, which cannot be appealed, is a serious blow…

Oct 6, 2015 10:47 AM CDT

Supreme Court to consider whether RICO reaches acts committed overseas

R. J. Reynolds has won Supreme Court review of its claim that it can’t be held accountable in U.S. courts for alleged violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act committed overseas. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case on Thursday to decide whether RICO has extraterritorial…

Oct 2, 2015 9:50 AM CDT

Lawyer who dodged train fare will pay restitution based on discounted weekly pass rate

A British lawyer who cut the cost of commuting to London by pretending to travel from a station much closer to the city’s center would have had to—over a period of more than 2½ years— pay tens of thousands of pounds in train fare at the daily rate. But a…

Sep 30, 2015 1:50 PM CDT

Allen & Overy, first UK Magic Circle firm to open in Toronto, is closing its office there

Only a year after Allen & Overy became the first of London’s leading corporate law firms to open an office in Toronto, the so-called Magic Circle firm is closing the Canadian outpost. The move follows the announced plan of founding Toronto partner Francois Duquette to take an in-house job at…

Sep 29, 2015 11:35 AM CDT

French regulators reject Google’s attempts to limit the scope of European privacy ruling

French regulators have dealt a blow to Google’s hopes of limiting the scope of the “right to be forgotten.” The New York Times reported on Monday that French data protection agency Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertes (CNIL) has handed down an expansive ruling bolstering a privacy decision issued…

Sep 21, 2015 3:20 PM CDT

After UK kills citizens in Syria in drone strike, critics question policy

Four years after a U.S. killing of an American-born cleric in Yemen through a drone strike sparked concern and criticism, the U.K. is facing similar questions about the drone-strike deaths last month of two British men in Syria. The target, Reynaad Khan, 21, was said to be an Islamic State…

Sep 9, 2015 2:44 PM CDT

Botched investigation, lack of evidence required acquittal of Amanda Knox, top Italian court says

A botched investigation by Italian authorities made it impossible to answer certain questions about exactly what happened when the 21-year-old roommate of Amanda Knox was murdered in 2007, the country’s top court said Monday. But, in the absence of any evidence putting Knox, now 28, and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito,…

Sep 9, 2015 1:25 PM CDT

Was it ‘misogynistic behavior’? BigLaw partner is chided for comment on ‘stunning’ LinkedIn photo

A human rights lawyer in the United Kingdom has accused a Brown Rudnick partner of “unacceptable and misogynistic behavior” for his comment about her “stunning” photo on LinkedIn. The human rights lawyer, 27-year-old Charlotte Proudman, used Twitter to post a screen shot of the comment by 57-year-old Alexander Carter-Silk, who…

Sep 9, 2015 8:24 AM CDT