US practices in Top-10 mergers slot

Two US firms have shot into the top 10 slot for mergers and acquisitions involving UK firms, while Ashurst Morris Crisp has reached the number five position, relegating Clifford Chance to number seven, according to Corporate Money's deal value league tables for the first three quarters of 1996.

Showing the US firms' increasing share of cross-border work, Davis Polk & Wardwell and Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom are at number five and number seven respectively in the magazine's list of law firms by deal value for the first three quarters of 1996.

But they achieved it with a few fairly lucrative transactions (five and seven respectively). Notable among these was the £2.2 billion bid by Republic Industries for ADT, in which Davis Polk acted alongside Allen & Overy for ADT and Skadden Arps and Freshfields acted for Republic Industries.

Skadden Arps also teamed up with Slaughter and May to represent Tomkins in its £748 million bid for the Gates Corporation.

If the positions hold till the end of the year, Ashursts, at number five in the table, will have made a big advance from the end of 1995, when it was at number 10.

Clifford Chance, which at the end of last year was number three behind Linklaters and Slaughters, languishes at number seven.

Linklaters & Paines retains its position at number one, which it held at the end of last year. Linklaters also has the highest average value deal at £358 million, compared with Clifford Chance's average of £114 million.