Shearman & Sterling, Slaughter and May and Weil Gotshal & Manges have netted the prize roles on the proposed takeover of Liverpool Football Club by the owner of US baseball franchise the Boston Red Sox.
European managing partner Creighton Condon is understood to be leading the Shearman team acting for longstanding client New England Sports Ventures (NESV), which successfully bid for the Red Sox in 2001. The team also features London corporate co-head Laurence Levy.
Weil Gotshal London managing partner Mike Francies is understood to be advising the current owners of the club Tom Hicks and George Gillett.
Slaughters is believed to be acting for Liverpool, fielding a team led by corporate rainmaker Nigel Boardman and also featuring corporate partner Mark Zerdin.
It is still unclear whether Allen & Overy has a role in the proposed takeover, which still requires Premier League approval before it can progress. Corporate chief Andrew Ballheimer claimed the prize mandate when he advised the Hicks and Gillett consortium on its £470m acquisition in 2007 (6 February 2007).
Readers' comments (17)
Scouser working in Manchester | 6-Oct-2010 1:41 pm
So which firm will be defending The Lawyer against LFC's libel case against it for calling it "a club soon to be plying its trade in the Championship" if it remains in the Premier League at the end of this season...?
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Roy Evans | 6-Oct-2010 1:55 pm
....and which will be acting for Roy Hodgson at his employment tribunal if that prediction turns out to be accurate?
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Kelvin MacKenzie | 6-Oct-2010 2:10 pm
Oops - looks like The Lawyer could be going the way of The Sun in terms of Scouse readership...
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Emlyn Hughes | 6-Oct-2010 4:25 pm
True - suggesting that Liverpool may not be about to win much any time soon is very much the equivalent of splashing on a made up story about their fans stealing from and urinating on the dead
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Scouser working in Manchester | 6-Oct-2010 4:33 pm
I can't see any firm within a 50mile radius of Liverpool wanting to act for Hodgson if he becomes as popular on Merseyside as Kelvin Mackenzie (Hicks and Gillett are coming close...)
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Christiano Ronaldo | 6-Oct-2010 5:01 pm
'Rainmaker' and Liverpool in the same story? LOL. Surely 'garbage collector' is more appropriate?
'Prize role' ?!? Surely you mean 'toilet roll' ?
Why would anyone buy Liverpool FC for 470m when you could probably buy the whole of Liverpool for that?
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Anonymous | 6-Oct-2010 10:26 pm
Nigel Boardman is a top lawyer who knows a lot about football and who loves the game. An excellent choice by the Liverpool Board. If anyone can see this through successfully it is he.
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Rahaw Sanjay | 6-Oct-2010 11:50 pm
Aren’t kopites really embarrassing!!
There is no end to how far you lot will; making movies, protests, banners, flags.
Accept it, you have a future of dreaming of the times you came close to Manchester Utd and Chelsea, now you are a mid-table team with a very average squad, most of whom don’t even want to play for you anymore…..
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Redlondon | 7-Oct-2010 2:09 am
Actually I have very real concerns if this deal doesn't go through that the next trophy the reds win will be the league championship trophy next season. LETS NOT BE THE NEXT NEWCASTLE!!!
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sam | 7-Oct-2010 8:29 am
the future has to be away from no more than what Hicks and the other man are " conmen" thats what they are and thats clear.
What type of people buy a business or anything for that matter and expect people to role up and spend spend and give them hand outs and loans and put hardly next to naff all into their own company! what a joke, a disgrace, hope that they get full bad luck in their future plans, i would live to knock the pair of them out.
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