| Banking/Restructuring Team of the Year |
 This award recognises the team of lawyers that has demonstrated a track record of headline bank lending, acquisition finance or restructuring work. The Judges will be giving particular credence to the views of the wider finance community in deciding the winning team. Client feedback in support of your submission is welcomed.
Previous Winners
Due to the collapse of Lehman Brothers, 15 September 2008 is a date destined to live long in the annals of economic history. The demise of the world’s fifth-largest investment bank sent shockwaves through the financial community. The event, which followed almost exactly one year after Northern Rock went into administration, tipped a crisis, which optimists had continued to label a downturn, into a full-blown global recession. Libor rates jumped 5% overnight, while 4,000 workers lost their jobs in Lehman’s UK headquarters at Canary Wharf.  The mandate to advise PricewaterhouseCoopers as joint administrators on what was the world’s largest ever corporate insolvency made Linklaters the envy of the legal elite. Not only was it arguably the single most important UK instruction of the credit crunch to date, it was also hugely remunerative. The firm was billing a reported £1m per week. But the unparalleled complexity and size of the restructuring would stretch even the largest and most experienced of international firms. As such, restructuring head Tony Bugg led a team of over 300 lawyers across 17 separate practice areas and 11 international offices from New York to Hong Kong. PwC’s praise for the team – calling it ‘dynamic, committed and very proactive; they come up with ideas that challenge us as insolvency practitioners’ – reinforces Linklaters’ position as a well-deserved winner. HIGHLY COMMENDEDCLIFFORD CHANCEStewart Dunlop; David SteinbergThe failure of the structured investment vehicle (SIV) market was a stark warning of the deepening impact of the credit crunch. With asset values falling due to investor concern over subprime exposure and the commercial paper market grinding to a halt, Cheyne Finance (now SIV Portfolio) became the first SIV to be declared insolvent in October 2007. Clifford Chance achieved a clean sweep in securing that mandate as well as roles on the market’s other first restructurings, advising Goldman Sachs on both Cheyne Finance and then IKB-sponsored Rhinebridge, as well as representing Deloitte as receiver on Whistlejacket’s restructuring. FRESHFIELDS BRUCKHAUS DERINGERWilliam Lawes; Alan Newton; Nick SegalNorthern Rock’s approach to the Bank of England as a lender of last resort provided a stark and shocking demonstration that the waves created by the US subprime mortgage crisis had well and truly crossed the Atlantic. Having been subjected to the first run on a major bank for over a century, Northern Rock turned to Freshfields on what was the first major UK restructuring of the credit crunch. The team expertly guided the beleaguered lender through its reorganisation and eventual state ownership. LOVELLSJames Doyle; Robin SpencerAnother firm in the thick of the action when the SIV market collapsed, Lovells acted for Deloitte as receivers on the market’s first two restructurings: Cheyne Finance and Rhinebridge. Robin Spencer and James Doyle’s team also advised Ernst & Young as receiver to Sigma Finance, the last surviving independent SIV. SLAUGHTER AND MAYSarah Paterson; Charles Randell; George SeligmanSlaughter and May’s role in the financial crisis has been unique and all-encompassing. As sole adviser to HM Treasury, the firm was involved in almost all aspects of the credit crunch in the UK. It advised the government on the nationalisation of Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley; the introduction and subsequent extension of the controversial Special Liquidity Scheme; and, most recently, the action taken to secure the positions of retail depositors affected by the Icelandic bank crash. Award sponsored by Bloomberg |