Ropes & Gray and Morrison & Foerster have won lead mandates on Toshiba’s $18bn chip sale to a US consortium led by Bain Capital.

Negotiations have been rattling on for months, with Bain understood to have won a tussle against a number of other bidders.

The sale concerns Toshiba Memory Corporation, a subsidiary of the technology giant that develops chip products.

Ropes & Gray advised longtime client Bain Capital on the proposed acquisition, with the deal led out of its Japan office. Office managing partner Tsuyoshi Imai led the team, alongside private equity counsel Saeko Inaba and finance counsel Ben Morris.

They were supported by Boston private equity partner Will Shield, as well as business and securities litigation partners Randall Bodner and John Bueker. Antitrust partner Ruchit Patel acted in London, while San Francisco-based Anne Johnson Palmer and Thomas Holden also advised on securities matters.

Ropes M&A partner Paul Scrivano worked on the matter from New York, with IP transactions partner Megan Baca acting in Silicon Valley.

Bain controls the purchasing consortium, which also consisted of companies such as Apple, Dell, Seagate and Hoya.

South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix was also involved and was represented by Dechert partner David Cho, based in Hong Kong. Partner John Markland worked on the financing aspects of the deal in London.

Another member of the consortium was Kingston Technology advised by Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld corporate partner Paul Lin, who is based in California. Corporate partners Jeffrey Kochian and Carlos Bermudez acted in New York and Los Angeles respectively, while partner Kevin McBride handled IP matters.

Morrison & Foerster represented Toshiba in the sale, with the firm’s Tokyo managing partner Kenneth Siegel leading the team with partners Ivan Smallwood, Leo Aguilar and Stuart Beraha. Partner Louise Stoupe also acted on litigation matters.

It is understood that the Japanese conglomerate Toshiba was at risk of being delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange had it not been able to agree a sale.

Toshiba has been involved in several scandals over the last few years, involving the overstatement of profits and delayed publication of financial results.