Legal news
The credit crunch is hitting some heavyweight UK and US firms hard, according to new figures.
In mergermarket’s league of leading global M&A law firms by value for the first half of 2008, Freshfields, fell from 4th in 2007 to 16th in the first half of 2008, while Clifford Chance, failed to get a top 20 place.
Charlie Welsh, mergermarket’s editor-in-chief, says rankings were heavily influenced by whether a firm advised one of the parties involved on BHP Billiton’s $211bn bid for Rio Tinto, but says many law firms are feeling the effect of the credit crunch.
“This deal, which involved awarding mandates to 14 different law firms, many of which have rarely if ever appeared at the top of the league tables, accounted for the toppling of traditional heavyweights,” he says. Welsh continues: “Freshfields, which in recent years has enjoyed a strong franchise advising on London - based leveraged buy-outs (LBOs), has clearly suffered at the hands of the credit crunch, which has resulted in large LBOs wiped off the M&A map indefinitely.”
Linklaters topped the table, with Allen & Overy jumping one place to 5th, Slaughter and May came 7th (32nd last year) and Lovells jumped from 71st to 12th place.
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