Cleary Gottlieb

The London office of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton had a standout year in 2011, posting a seven per cent increase in City revenue from $89.3m to $94.7m.

These figures followed a number of partner exits in the City the previous year, when two London-based partners, capital markets partner Ashar Qureshi and competition partner Shaun Goodman, both left the firm. Goodman’s departure left Cleary with just two partners working on UK competition law that year — Nicholas Levy and Romano Subiotto QC, the latter who divided his time between London and Brussels.

Nevertheless, the years following have seen the firm's London presence go from strength to strength, and the US firm spent last year (2012) working on a number of headline deals in Europe. The firm advised longstanding client Coca-Cola, for example, as it moved to its main listing from Athens to London following the Greek-based Coca-Cola bottler’s credit downgrading by agencies in the wake of the country’s economic crisis.

Firmwide, Cleary has long advised Coca-Cola, including advising The Coca-Cola Company on its acquisition of the North American bottling operations of Coca-Cola Enterprise.

The firm had yet to post its 2012's financial figures at the time of writing, although Cleary's firmwide revenue in 2011 hit $1.125bn.