I spy
Beachcroft has pulled off quite a coup with the appointment of Bryan Houston as head of intelligence for the firm’s fraud team. This may sound like a two-brain job but Houston is not just grey matter. He has an extraordinary track record as a man of action, too, having been the surveillance and covert penetration team manager for the British Armed Forces.
All of which sounds amazingly cloak-and-dagger for Fetter Lane but then that is the way that investigating fraud has developed of late. The Beachcroft team acts for clients such as large composite insurers to Lloyd’s syndicates, corporates and brokers and all its staff are members of the Association of Crime & Intelligence Analysts. Moreover, Beachcroft is the first law firm to provide the Insurance Fraud Bureau with an intelligence analyst. Plans are afoot to expand its own intelligence unit still further with the appointment of eight more intelligence analysts. Who would have thought the law would have got so exciting? But who could have believed that fraud would become such an important area of work?
Triffic stuff
After the torrent of comments from City law firms that followed the publication of the Government’s guidance on the Bribery Act comes the onslaught of briefings, seminars and roundtables.
Advertisement
Salans has managed to net Richard Alderman, the Serious Fraud Office director, for its briefing taking place today at the Reform Club. Also involved is Ashwin Maini, group director anti-bribery and anti-corruption, group compliance at Barclays bank, and Stephen Sharp, of Bivonas LLP.
Meanwhile, Simmons & Simmons is going for both a briefing (jointly with KPMG next Tuesday) and a pair of podcasts. I found the promotional puff particularly intriguing. The podcasts featured as their scene-setting illustration the nearest thing to a triffid (the carnivorous vegetable in the John Wyndham novel) that I have seen this side of a Slaughter and May cocktail party. Just wait until this monster wraps its tendrils around you — and your clients, seems to be the cultural sub-text. In other words, be very afraid. The Bribery Act is out to get you.
Since when?
Full respect to the wordsmith who came up with the title Incisive Law for the recently formed Singapore law practice that, since today, is the “local partner” of Ince & Co. Together they make up the Ince Law Alliance — all of which is a rather long-winded way of announcing that the maritime law specialists Ince & Co can now provide a one-stop shop offering advice on English and Singapore law. It can also appear both in the Singapore courts and in domestic and international arbitration. And this is a first for an English firm — Singapore slings all round, I think.