Herbert Smith provides a full range of services for clients in the accountancy, professional services and business services sectors, including:
- accountants
- actuaries
- law firms
- consultants
- business services
In particular, the firm has a long history of acting for the large accountancy firms, providing fully integrated corporate and dispute resolution advice for PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG and Deloitte. The firm is also continuing to advise the liquidating partners of Andersen UK in relation to a number of matters.
Partnership and LLP law
We are well-versed in the particular issues affecting the professions, and have a top-ranked partnership practice providing advice on the structuring of international partnerships and on disputes, many of which are highly confidential and resolved without recourse to either litigation or damaging publicity. We have also advised a number of professional firms on their conversion from partnership to LLP status.
Corporate
We have advised "Big Four" accountants on very large-scale corporate matters such as:
- the worldwide merger of Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand
- the subsequent separation of PricewaterhouseCoopers' management consulting businesses
- the sale of KPMG's consultancy business to Atos Origin
- the conversion of KPMG's UK practice to LLP status
- the combination of the bulk of Andersen's UK operations with Deloitte
- the acquisition of Andersen's Hong Kong and China operations by PricewaterhouseCoopers
Our transactional lawyers work hand-in-hand with EU/competition specialists, advising on merger clearance, as well as with our tax, employment and pensions lawyers.
We also handle other transactional work for business services clients such as Capita and Group 4 Securicor.
Dispute resolution
Whenever there has been a major attack on the auditing and accountancy professions, our disputes lawyers have been there. In fact we have been involved in all of the most significant, and often high-profile, litigation of the last 10 years, including BCCI, the Lloyd's litigation and Barings. We have been equally prominent where disciplinary proceedings have resulted from this litigation, whether internal or involving regulators, and where criminal investigations have taken place. We are currently handling Mayflower, the first case before the Accountancy Investigation and Discipline Board (AIDB), and are therefore one of the first two firms to gain this experience.
Regulatory
We provide a top-level advisory service on professional and liability matters and advise major firms on regulatory issues relating to the accountancy profession. We have an in-house consultant accountant (who used to work for the Accounting Standards Board), providing the firm with insight into auditing and accounting issues and enhancing the firm's understanding of the regulatory environment faced by accountancy practices. A significant number of our partners work with regulatory authorities of direct relevance to the accounting profession.
Lawyers experienced in handling both contentious and non-contentious work for our accountancy, professional and business services clients are located across our network of offices in Europe and in Asia. We also work closely with our alliance partners Gleiss Lutz and Stibbe.