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CHAPTER 5
New Horizons
Quick off the Mark
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The Firm's international outlook became evident early in its history.
firm directories
First office directories listing the Firm's first three offices outside the United States: Paris in 1926 (white), Brussels in 1967 (gray) and London in 1971 (red).
Some of the major and most interesting matters described in the preceding four chapters reflected momentous events occurring in the outside world, including the work of DuPratt White in purchasing war materials in the United States during World War I for the British and French governments and the work of George Case during World War I for the American Red Cross. During the first 75 years covered in Part I, the Firm also represented non-U.S. clients such as Seagram and Swiss Bank Corporation.
Some of the major and most interesting matters described in the preceding four chapters reflected momentous events occurring in the outside world, including the work of DuPratt White in purchasing war materials in the United States during World War I for the British and French governments and the work of George Case during World War I for the American Red Cross. During the first 75 years covered in Part I, the Firm also represented non-U.S. clients such as Seagram and Swiss Bank Corporation.
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place vendôme, paris, 1918
The Firm opened its first non-U.S. office on Place Vendôme in 1926.

The German syndicate and the German government were not pleased by the Schmidtmanns’ independent potash-selling activities in the United States.
Although most of this work involving non-U.S. events and clients was performed by lawyers based in the New York office, it was the extensive activities undertaken by the Firm’s lawyers in other countries that, by the end of the 1970s, would allow the Firm legitimately to claim that it was more familiar with international operations than most of its competitor law firms.
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Announcement of the reopening of the Paris office, 1960

First non-U.S. offices
Although White & Case would not begin its transformation into a global law firm until the early 1980s, it became one of the first U.S. law firms to establish an office outside the United States when it opened in Paris in 1926. The principal reason for posting lawyers to Paris was to serve the Firm’s most important client, Bankers Trust (which had itself opened in the French capital six years earlier), the American Red Cross and other clients, including a number of U.S. expatriates living in France. Irving Olds was selected to open the office on the Place Vendôme. He spent two years in Paris before returning to New York. Other partners followed Olds to Paris, including Fitzhugh McGrew, Monty Hatch and Henry Mannix, and a stint in the City of Light became a regular part of the career path for many members of the Firm in the 1920s and 1930s.

When World War II broke out in 1939, the Firm kept the office open but under close watch, essentially closing down operations in 1940 and officially closing it in 1941. Paul Pennoyer was in charge of the office at that time and left as the German army bore down on Paris. When the war ended, the Firm considered reopening the Paris office but opted instead to open an office in London, staffed by a single lawyer, to help the Firm determine if enough opportunities would arise in post-war Europe to merit opening one or more offices there. Bill Williams, who would later become one of the Firm’s relationship partners with Prudential Insurance Company, was the first lawyer to be posted to London. In order to avoid having to list the names of all the Firm’s partners on the stationery it used in London, the Firm registered Williams under the English Business Names Act as a “representative” of White & Case rather than register under that act in its own name. The office was closed in mid-1952. Pennoyer had enjoyed his time in Paris and began encouraging the Firm to reopen in the French capital after the London office was closed. Irving Olds was also a proponent of reopening in Paris and agreed to relocate there when the decision was finally made to reopen in 1960. The office developed slowly at first, handling estate and personal matters for individual clients and undertaking some commercial work. However, the work of the office picked up rapidly as a result of increased U.S. investment in Europe and the establishment of operations in Paris by a number of banks. The Paris office benefited from a succession of ambitious and entrepreneurial White & Case partners—among them, Jim Hurlock, Sims Farr, Don Madden and John Riggs—who recognized the opportunities presented by the pickup in U.S. business on the continent.
German potash cartel
An early example of this international activity was the work done for another of the clients referred to the Firm by J.P. Morgan & Co. during the Firm’s early years, International Agricultural Corporation (IAC). IAC was formed in 1909 by a group of investors including Hermann Schmidtmann and his son Waldemar, who became IAC’s first president. The Firm prepared IAC’s incorporation papers and became its general counsel, and both DuPratt White and George Case sat on its board of directors. White & Case would continue to represent IAC and its successors, International Minerals & Chemical Corporation and Mallinckrodt, for more than eight decades. At the time IAC was formed, potash was said to be available only from Germany. Hermann Schmidtmann was a wealthy Austrian who owned an interest in one of the largest German potash mines (Aschersleben) and in 1905 had acquired a Prussian potash mine (Sollstedt). Until June 30, 1909, Schmidtmann’s Aschersleben mine was part of the German potash syndicate, a voluntary association of the largest German potash producers, which had been in place since the 1880s. His Sollstedt mine did not join the German syndicate. Schmidtmann sent his son to the United States to seek supply deals with smaller U.S. fertilizer producers by agreeing to cap their prices at the price charged by the German syndicate to larger U.S. producers. The German syndicate and the German government were not pleased by the Schmidtmanns’ independent potash-selling activities in the United States and pressured them to add the Sollstedt mine to the German syndicate in 1907. The Schmidtmanns sought to avoid committing their mines to any new contract with the German syndicate by forming IAC as a vehicle to acquire the Sollstedt mine and use its potash output to produce fertilizer.

To facilitate its production of fertilizer, simultaneously with its formation, IAC acquired the Tennessee phosphate properties of an American, Thomas Meadows, who became IAC’s first vice-president. The IAC-owned Sollstedt mine and the Schmidtmanns’ Aschersleben mine, which in 1909 had opted out of the German syndicate agreement, both began selling potash directly to U.S. companies at almost one-half the price charged by the German syndicate and reportedly captured 80 percent of the U.S. market in a few short months. As a result, the German Reichstag, in May 1910, passed a law establishing the German syndicate as a cartel and requiring all German potash mines to be members and abide by established pricing. IAC, on behalf of the Sollstedt mine, and the Schmidtmanns directly, on behalf of the Aschersleben mine, refused to join the cartel. That led to intense negotiations between IAC, the Schmidtmanns and the German syndicate that involved the German and U.S. governments, and that led, in turn, to an agreement in October 1911 that resulted in the two mines joining the syndicate. DuPratt White and George Case were both involved in helping IAC deal with the German government concerning the cartel, and White traveled to Germany several times for this purpose. He also appears to have maintained a close personal relationship with both Hermann and Waldemar Schmidtmann. In an August 9, 1919 letter from Waldemar to the U.S. War Trade Board regarding a question about his nationality, Waldemar concluded the letter with this paragraph:
Being a member of the board of directors of the International Agricultural Corporation, I have to take frequent trips to New York. I generally stop at the Hotel Martinique, or at the house of Mr. J. DuPratt White, of White & Case, at Nyack, New York. Any inquiries that the United States Government should want to make could probably be best answered by Mr. J. DuPratt White, since he is familiar not only with my present conditions, but has also frequently visited my father in Austria. He also assisted as legal adviser in our potash controversies against the German Syndicate and the German Government.
Paul Pennoyer, a Harvard Law graduate, came to White & Case in 1920 after having served as a captain of field artillery in the Army during World War I. The son-in-law of J.P. “Jack” Morgan Jr., he was tall and dignified, with a laid-back sense of humor. In early 1929, shortly before
Paul Pennoyer
Paul Pennoyer, a Harvard Law graduate, came to White & Case in 1920 after having served as a captain of field artillery in the Army during World War I. The son-in-law of J.P. “Jack” Morgan Jr., he was tall and dignified, with a laid-back sense of humor. In early 1929, shortly before the stock market crashed, he left White & Case to become a partner of Dominick & Dominick, a top Wall Street securities firm, returning to White & Case three and a half years later to do trusts and estates work. He was in charge of the Firm’s Paris office when the Firm decided to close it at the beginning of World War II. He served again in the military during World War II, rising to the rank of colonel and assisting in the planning of the 1945 San Francisco Conference at which the United Nations was created. Resuming his active participation in the Firm after the war, he was appointed managing partner in 1946. Pennoyer had spent much of his youth in France and was a devoted Francophile. At his urging, the Firm reopened its Paris office in 1960. He remained active in the Firm until his death in 1971 at age 80.
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Jim Hurlock was in charge of the Paris office when Gene Goodwillie, then a young associate, arrived in Paris in 1970 and became involved in the growing range of commercial deals that the office was starting to handle. “It was Hurlock’s mission to develop mainline corporate work, and to reduce the reliance on American expatriate work, which was declining and was not particularly profitable,” Goodwillie has noted. He himself worked on many significant deals, including advising the U.S. beverage giant Brown-Forman on its joint venture to acquire a burgundy wine négociant and producer, Lionel J. Bruck, S.A. Not that the increased U.S. investment was welcomed by one and all. At one point, President de Gaulle threatened to force U.S. businesses out of France. However unlikely it was that he would carry out this threat, the Firm took the precaution of opening an office in Brussels in 1967, the thinking being that this could be an alternative base for its European operations. In addition, Brussels was the capital of the then European Economic Community, later the European Union, and the Firm’s management took the view that EU law would continue to grow in importance. The other growth area was advising banks on the nascent but fast-growing Eurodollar market. Most of this work originated in London, and it was in London, in 1971, that White & Case opened its next office with Jim Hurlock as its head. London was at that time reestablishing itself as a global financial center, driven in part by the U.S. Interest Equalization Tax of 1963. This tax imposed a 15 percent levy on interest received from non-U.S. borrowers in the United States. By making it more costly to borrow dollars in the United States, the tax drove many borrowers to Europe, helping to create the Eurodollar market. White & Case was an innovator in this market, writing many of the earliest Eurodollar loan agreements from its office in New York. “While initially that market was done under New York law,” Hurlock recollected, “English law started to come into play as well, and we needed a presence in London.”
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Jim Hurlock
Then head of the Firm’s Brussels office, standing on Avenue Franklin Roosevelt in Brussels, 1967.

At that time, non-UK lawyers were not permitted to advise on English law. Although UK law did not prohibit non-UK lawyers from giving advice on English law except for real estate and wills, the Law Society persuaded the UK Home Office not to issue work permits or visas to non-UK lawyers unless they undertook not to advise on English law. Hurlock believed the undertakings to the Home Office by White & Case lawyers in London were inapplicable to advice on English law given by a barrister rather than a solicitor, and the Firm hired barrister Francis Fitzherbert-Brockholes in 1978. The Firm also established good relationships with a number of UK firms that were willing to act as co-counsel on English law deals when circumstances required. This enabled the Firm to maintain a low profile with the Home Office while its lawyers in London acquired more expertise and experience with English law-governed transactions. These restrictive practices would remain generally in place until the early 1990s, but the London office had a steady flow of business from the day it opened. Hurlock remained in London for four years before returning to the New York office in 1975. By that time he had spent 10 of his first 15 years at the Firm outside the United States
(see profile)
, been the head of the Firm’s Paris and Brussels offices and opened White & Case’s London office. Although he did not know it at the time he arrived back in New York, he was about to be presented with the opportunity that would help project him into the position of being able to decide where the Firm should open offices in the future, altering not only the course of his legal career but also the course of the Firm’s history.