Soliman served as global chair in 2019
The international law firm Norton Rose Fulbright announced Thursday that Walied Soliman will serve as the firm’s global chair for 2024.
As chair of the global supervisory board, he will have both an ambassadorial and governance function. Soliman was Canada chair in 2017 and served another term as global chair in 2019.
“The most important thing to me is to amplify the great place that Norton Rose Fulbright, globally, finds itself,” says Soliman. “In Canada, we’re widely regarded as one of the leading business law firms in the country. We've had great successes from coast to coast.
“That success is mirrored in 52 offices on five continents. Making sure that our colleagues are working together and seamlessly ensuring that our clients are getting the best legal service in the world is going to be my primary goal.”
Soliman takes over for Scott Atkins, a partner in Sydney, Australia, who will now serve as Australia chair.
“My predecessor… did an incredible job of ensuring that a very big world was made smaller by his constant representation and unification of partners and client opportunities around the world,” says Soliman.
Soliman is an M&A lawyer and co-chair of Norton Rose Fulbright’s special situations team. He says he has never seen the team busier to kick off the new year, with boards across Canada and the Western world facing significant scrutiny from shareholders on issues including decision-making processes, governance, and succession.
“Those sensitive board issues are all being highly scrutinized,” says Soliman. “We are finding ourselves both proactively and defensively assisting companies in Canada and around the world on ensuring that they have both the best positions on these issues and, of course, the best responses when shareholders take action.”
Canada and the world saw a steep rise in shareholder activist campaigns in 2023, according to Bloomberg’s 2023 Global Activism Review. Globally, there was a 24 percent increase in activist campaigns, with 665 launched in 2022 and 823 launched in 2023. Canada went from 27 to 77 – a 185-percent surge. Activist campaigns at companies worth more than $1 billion went from eight in 2022 to 33 in 2023.
“There is no question that the most important trend facing boards is ensuring that they are ready for everything from shareholder activism to complex M&A, to succession issues, to cyber issues – all areas that we are advising the leading boards in the world on right now,” says Soliman.
According to Bloomberg, Norton Rose Fulbright is globally the ninth most prevalent legal advisor on the activist side. For Canada, Bloomberg ranked the firm first for company-side work.
Soliman says he plans to build on the firm’s success by encouraging collaboration and a culture of collegiality and cohesiveness between offices. “As global chair, I intend to continue to inspire inclusion, engagement and pride and to entrench Norton Rose Fulbright as a leading law firm and employer of choice globally.”
