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APRIL 2013 World Report - Europe 11Olswang advises EuromoneyInstitutional Investor PLC onthe agreement to acquireHSBC's QuantitativeTechniques operationOlswang has acted forEuromoney InstitutionalInvestor PLC, one of Europe'slargest business and financialmagazine publishers, on theagreement to acquire HSBC'sQuantitative Techniques(QT) operation. QT is thecalculation agent business ofHSBC Bank PLC and createsand maintains more than 100equity and bond indices forHSBC's Global Markets divisionand 60 other external clients.Completion of the salewill take place after atransition phase, which isexpected to take six months.This acquisition will allowEuromoney InstitutionalInvestor to build anew business buildingindependentindexcompilation services, andleverage its strong relationshipswith financial institutions toexpand QT's customer base.Euromoney also plans to useQT's index calculationexpertise to develop newindex families across otherparts of its business.Stephen Hermer, Partner inOlswang's Corporate Group,commented: "We weredelighted to help one of thebiggest European businessand financial publishers on thisstrategic acquisition whichwill see it expand into a newbusiness area and leverageexisting relationships."The Olswang team was led byCorporate Partner StephenHermer with assistance fromPartner Ross McKean andAssociates Yasmine Meeajunand Melanie Shefford.Cypriot citizenshiprules to be relaxedfor foreign investorsThe rules regulating Cypriotcitizenship are set to berelaxed for foreigninvestors who have lostmore than 3 million eurosin the bailout deal as aresult of the recentfinancial crisis.The announcement willmostly affect Russianbusinesses, which havebillions in Cypriot banks.According to the BBC,President Anastasiadessaid at a press conferencethat the move would‘mitigate to some extentthe damage" that hadbeen suffered by theaffected investors.6th annual University of Oxford / Gide LoyretteNouel French law mootOn Monday 11 March2013, the University ofOxford held its French LawMoot for the 6th yearrunning, sponsored by theinternational French lawfirm Gide Loyrette Nouel.The competition broughttogether teams from theUniversities of Oxford,Cambridge, Birminghamand Warwick, UniversityCollege London, King’sCollege London and,from further afield,Complutense University ofMadrid, the University ofFlorence and the Universityof Cologne.The moot, or concoursde plaidoiries, this yearconsidered an issue ofFrench employment lawwith the added element ofan employee’s right toprivacy and was judgedby a variety of highlyrespected French legalprofessionals andacademics.The panel overseeing thefinal was chaired by MAlain Lacabarats, thepresident of the SocialDivision of the Cour deCassation, FrenchSupreme Court. He wasassisted by:Mme Françoise Kamara,conseiller in the CivilDivision of the Cour deCassationMme Dominque Fenouillet,professor at the UniversitéParis 2 Panthéon-Assasand director of the Institutefor Legal SociologyM Philippe Stoffel-Munck,professor of private law atthe Université Paris 1Panthéon-SorbonneRupert Reece, partner withthe International DisputeResolution team at GideLoyrette NouelInterestingly, M Lacabaratsconfessed that it was notat all clear how the mattershould be decided giventhe facts and that it wastherefore down to thedexterity of each side'scounsel to convince thecourt of their client’s case.The winning team fromUCL, Micol Flegenheimerand Lara Levet, each wonan internship with the firm.Rupert Reece, partner andjudge said: “The standardof advocacy wasparticularly high this year. Itwas very impressive to seestudents from such a widevariety of legal andculturalbackgroundsattacking a reallychallenging topic ofFrench law and doing it allin French.”www.lawyer-monthly.com