The KIPCO Group is one of the biggest diversified holding companies in the Middle East and North Africa, with assets worth more than US$18 billion under management or control. The Group has substantial ownerships interests in a portfolio of 54 companies operating across 17 countries. The company's main business sectors are financial services and media & telecommunications. We were retained by KIPCO on this transaction following our work as issuer's counsel on the proposed IPO of one of its subsidiaries, to whom we were introduced by another client of the firm.

The Weil Gotshal team was led by corporate partners Jeremy Dickens and Ian Hamilton, assisted by Simon Lyell and Simon Burrows. Partner Michael Nicklin provided finance advice.

About Weil, Gotshal & Manges

Weil, Gotshal & Manges is an international law firm of over 1,100 lawyers, including approximately 300 partners. Weil, Gotshal is headquartered in New York, with offices in Austin, Boston, Brussels, Budapest, Dallas, Frankfurt, Houston, London, Miami, Munich, Paris, Prague, Providence, Shanghai, Silicon Valley, Singapore, Warsaw, Washington, DC and Wilmington.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich today called on lawmakers to "seize the moment" and enact new taxes on business, lease the state lottery and borrow money to fund a massive expansion of health care, pump new money into education and relieve the state's growing pension debt.

Delivering a combined budget address and State of the State message to the General Assembly, Blagojevich said he stood with the middle class against business interests who have failed to "simply pay their fair share" of the state's tax burden.

"For decades, it's been the middle class and the working families of Illinois that have shouldered more and more of the tax burden. And while they've paid more, the wealthiest corporations in our state have paid less and less. The impact of this imbalance weakens our economy, burdens our families and holds our state back," Blagojevich said.

"And the saddest irony of all, the very people burdened by an unfair tax system, middle class families and working families were hurt by the underfunding of education, health care and pension funds," he said.

Telling lawmakers the choice was theirs to make, Blagojevich said, "To me, the choice is simple. I stand with the people."

Andrews Kurth LLP has named Elizabeth A. Campbell as its Chief Diversity Officer. Ms. Campbell is a partner at the firm and will devote her efforts full time to overseeing the firm’s diversity strategy. Leaders of the 400-attorney firm say that Ms. Campbell’s hiring is a key component in building an inclusive culture that embraces and leverages a diverse workforce and raises diversity awareness for the firm and its clients.

“Andrews Kurth is committed to being a leader in diversity, both because it’s the right thing to do and it makes business sense,” says Managing Partner Howard Ayers. “It’s important that our firm mirror the composition of the communities we serve, and we want to set an example of how to bring diversity home and make it operate. We undertook a nationwide search and found the right person for the job, someone with broad and high-level experience in the diversity arena, as well as solid legal credentials.”

Ms. Campbell has more than 25 years of experience in administrative and employment litigation both in law firm and in-house counsel settings and has led human resources, employment relations and diversity strategies at large corporations. Most recently Ms. Campbell served as Vice President of Employment Relations and Corporate Diversity Officer for the ARAMARK Corporation in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

She received her J.D. in 1978 from the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and her B.A. in 1975 from The American University in Washington, DC.

“It is an honor to join a firm that clearly values diversity and inclusion as a way to enhance the delivery of high quality client services,” says Ms. Campbell. “I am excited to make the move to Houston and to continue and expand the work already begun by Andrews Kurth.”

Ms. Campbell will report directly to Mr. Ayers and will work closely with Gene Locke, who chairs the firm’s Diversity Committee. She will also serve as a member of a steering committee overseeing all of the firm’s work in the areas of diversity, recruiting, professional development and marketing.
Mr. Locke says it is critical that Ms. Campbell be a full partner in the firm with her focus solely on the firm’s diversity strategy.

“The firm views these measures with such importance that we want Ms. Campbell to devote her full attention to diversity without the pressures of practicing law, even on a part-time basis,” he says. “To distract her from that mission would diminish our imperative.”

The hiring of Ms. Campbell is a continuation of Andrews Kurth’s leadership in the area of diversity. The firm has a Women’s Initiatives Committee to develop and retain the talents of its female attorneys and was one of the first law firms in the nation to host a retreat exclusively for its female attorneys and clients.

Most recently, International Law Partner Doris Rodriguez was named to the 17-member board of the Texas Diversity Council, an organization that is committed to promoting diversity in the workplace and the community.

For more than a century, Andrews Kurth LLP has built its practice on the belief that “straight talk is good business.” Real answers, clear vision and mutual respect define the firm’s relationships with clients, colleagues, communities and employees. With more than 400 lawyers and offices in Austin, Beijing, Dallas, Houston, London, Los Angeles, New York, The Woodlands and Washington, DC, Andrews Kurth represents a wide array of clients in all areas of business law.

www.andrewskurth.com

A man has won damages of £750 from an internet company after he was sent a single unsolicited email.

Gordon Dick, an electronic marketing specialist, launched a civil case against Transcom after it sent him an unwanted email on an address that was known only to one company. His case is the first time a British court has set a level of compensation for spam.

It is also the first time that a court in Britain has awarded compensation to an individual complaining about spam, which accounts for three quarters of all emails sent in the UK.

'The courts have shown they are sensitive to putting right these misdemeanours, and the small claims procedures are ideally suited to take low-cost legal action,' said Dick.

Dick, 30, says he was confident of winning the case because he knew the offending spammer had his email address on a mailing list and he had not given permission for it to be handed out.

He says he would have been happy with an apology from Transcom, the firm that breached the anti-spam laws. But he says it responded to his complaint in bullish fashion and told him to go to court if he was not happy.

He did, and was awarded damages in a small claims case at Edinburgh sheriff court.

When he returned to court recently after Transcom failed to pay him, he was also awarded expenses of more than £600.

Dick is now planning to enforce collection of the sum, and urged other people irritated by unwanted emails to take the same action.

He began the case last summer, and has since set up his own web site, www.scotchspam.org.uk, offering advice on how to take legal action, and including a pro forma letter of complaint to send to the spammers.

Dick told the court that his address had been harvested from an email group of which he was a member. The message he received was sent to 72,000 people.

The justices rejected without comment Ebbers' bid for review of his 2005 conviction based on his contention that he was denied a fair trial.

Hearing the news, Thomas Harris of Brandon, a former WorldCom accountant, who at one time thought he might be able to retire at age 40, said, "I don't harbor any ill feelings against Bernie, but when we make decisions we have to live by them."

Harris, a 13-year employee, left the company, then known as MCI, to open a business with his wife when it appeared he would have to move to stay with the company.

"Hopefully all of this will be a deterrent to other executives making decisions not good for a company," Harris said.

Ebbers began serving his sentence in the Federal Correctional Institution in Oakdale, La., in September, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons Web site lists July 4, 2028, as the 65-year-old Ebbers' projected release date.

Absent a presidential pardon -which was less likely than Supreme Court intervention - Ebbers will serve his sentence, said Matt Steffey, a professor at Mississippi College School of Law.

Steffey said he wasn't surprised the Supreme Court rejected Ebbers' appeal.

"Other than Mr. Ebbers' status as a businessman, there was nothing noteworthy from a legal perspective," he said. "It seems he got a fair trial, he was ably represented and he had his conviction reviewed by the Court of Appeals. Everything went according to form.

"Cases like this rarely get reviewed by the Supreme Court. If Mr. Ebbers weren't famous, there would be little public interest."

Ebbers argued in court papers the trial judge improperly allowed prosecutors to use testimony from witnesses who had been given immunity but denied immunity to potential defense witnesses.

The judge also instructed jurors they could find Ebbers guilty if they believed he suspected a crime was being committed but intentionally looked the other way.

A federal appeals court upheld the conviction last year while acknowledging Ebbers' sentence for a white-collar crime was longer than sentences routinely imposed by many states for violent crimes. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Ebbers' actions to hide WorldCom's financial problems were substantial and had cost investors dearly.

Stacey Wall, president and chief executive officer at Pinnacle Trust Wealth Management in Ridgeland, said he sympathizes with investors who lost money but thinks Ebbers' sentence was too harsh. "Relative to other corporate scandals and executives involved, he got very unfair treatment," he said.

Ebbers was convicted of fraud and conspiracy in March 2005 for his role in the scheme that drove the former telecommunications giant into bankruptcy in 2002.

Investigators uncovered $11 billion in fraud, much of it because accountants were classifying regular expenses as long-term capital expenditures. The company re-emerged under the name MCI and moved the headquarters to Virginia. Verizon later bought MCI.