Legal Brief: The winning teams

In the deals categories SJ Berwin scooped Corporate Team of the Year for offering groundbreaking advice to Apax Partners on the $956m investment by sovereign wealth fund Chinese Investment Corporation (CIC) - advice that changed the way deals could be done in the most difficult market in living memory (see story).

Meanwhile, the Banking and Finance Team of the Year prize was awarded to Slaughter and May, which acted on the Asset Protection Scheme (APS) for HM Treasury. This was the UK’s programme to deal with toxic bank assets that was the centrepiece of the Labour Government’s response to the financial crisis and was designed to reinforce the stability of the financial system (see story). Slaughters negotiated with both RBS and Lloyds Banking Group (before Lloyds decided not to participate.) It was the most complex and important mandate borne out of the credit crunch.

On the contentious side Herbert Smith picked up a gong for best Litigation Team of the Year after partner Ted Greeno achieved success in one of the most eagerly anticipated litigation trials of the last year: BSkyB v Electronic Data Systems (EDS) (see story).

Elsewhere, Ashurst walked away with the real estate team of the year category for its Stratford development project. Ashurst scored a key role, advising longstanding client Westfield on the £4bn Stratford City development, described as “a significant and clearly highly complex asset-based deal for a developer client” (read more).

Click here for a full list of all the winners and runners-up.