The top 3 stories from today's briefing, narrated as a short audio episode.
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Briefing Notes
M&A
Goldman Sachs surpasses $1 trillion in first-half M&A advisory volume, setting an all-time record for any investment bank within a half-year period
A $1 trillion advisory half-year means the full transactional stack — M&A, leveraged finance, regulatory clearance — is running at capacity simultaneously.
Capital Markets
Lumina Metals' Warsaw Stock Exchange debut sees shares surge 46% after C$406 million IPO, as Poland bets on a domestic copper boom to supply Europe's energy transition
Dual-listed mining IPOs unlock two investor bases but require parallel prospectus regimes — complexity that drives substantial capital markets legal mandates.
International
Yum! Brands sells Pizza Hut in a $2.7bn deal split between PE firm LongRange Capital and Yum China, with the UK restaurants included in the LongRange sale
A two-buyer split — LongRange takes the ex-China business (UK included), Yum China takes the mainland — means parallel legal workstreams, each with its own regulatory and contractual complexity.
Banking & Finance
Man Group warns AI credit markets face a 'violent' correction as mispriced risk coils in high-yield and leveraged loan books
Free-cash-flow-negative AI borrowers in leveraged loan markets are the credit fault line that finance lawyers need to watch most closely in H2.
Regulation
Bank of England says UK's new captive insurance regime must be 'transparent and cost-effective' as it draws up long-awaited regulations for the sector
A competitive UK captive regime could repatriate insurance structuring business from Bermuda and Guernsey — real advisory work for insurance regulatory practices.
Energy & Tech
Schneider Electric and Foxconn announce strategic collaboration to co-develop integrated AI data centre infrastructure as energy demand from AI accelerates
AI data centre infrastructure deals activate technology, IP, and energy advisory simultaneously — exactly the multi-practice mandates elite firms are positioning to own.
Disputes
Steptoe hires Queen Mary professor Loukas Mistelis as London arbitration partner, bolstering its international disputes practice with a leading ICC and ICSID practitioner
Combining academic arbitral authority with institutional practice breadth makes Mistelis the kind of hire that attracts instructions to sit as arbitrator — not just as counsel.
AI & Law
AI is reshaping litigation economics on both sides of the 'v', as access-to-justice advocates simultaneously look to AI to supplement regulatory reform in closing the legal services gap
AI is democratising litigation prep and threatening legal service margins at the same time — firms that only cut costs will lose; firms that improve decisions will win.