03.22.09
Slaughter Greed once again!! and others too!
Slaughter and May earns £9.4m on Northern RockMichael Herman
Slaughter and May, the City law firm, earned £9.4 million as chief legal adviser to HM Treasury on the nationalisation of Northern Rock, dwarfing the amounts billed by other advisers.
The law firm took the lion’s share of the total £26.8 million in professional advisory fees paid by HM Treasury, billing almost double the £4.8 million paid to Goldman Sachs, the chief investment banking adviser.
Ernst & Young earned £4.4 million; BDO Stoy Hayward £4.5 million and Clifford Chance £2.4 million, according to HM Treasury figures published in the National Audit Office’s (NAO) report on Northern Rock.
Slaughter and May, which played a pivotal role in the Northern Rock rescue, earned its fees for “commercial legal advice and drafting of legal agreements”, the NAO report said.
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The firm’s overall take from the wider banking crisis is likely to be much higher: it has also advised HM Treasury on the recapitalisations of RBS, Lloyds TSB and HBOS, the collapse of the Icelandic banks, the establishment of the Bank of England’s special liquidity scheme and parts of what became the Banking Act 2009.
Charles Randell, a senior Slaughter and May partner, has been the lead adviser to HM Treasury working alongside others including Nilufer von Bismarck, a corporate partner, Matthew Tobin, a financing partner and financial regulation partner Ben Kingsley.
