Legal Business

Deal Watch: CC, Freshfields and A&O act on Liberty Global’s €6.9bn acquisition as Dentons and LG float Hurricane

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Three Magic Circle firms have scored lead advisory roles on Liberty Global’s €6.9bn acquisition of Netherlands’ largest cable operator Ziggo, with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Clifford Chance (CC) and Allen & Overy (A&O) all acting on the deal.

A&O’s Amsterdam-based corporate partner Annelies van der Pauw led for Liberty Global and competition partner Paul Glazener worked on the antitrust aspects, as the joint entity will have around 90% of the regulated Dutch fixed line cable market, while CC’s finance partner Mark Huddlestone headed up the team to advising the lenders.

Longstanding Liberty Global adviser Ropes & Gray led on financial aspects for the company in London, with partners Tania Bedi and Jane Rogers advising alongside the firm’s London co-managing partner Maurice Allen.

The firm has also previously represented the international cable company on the financing of its €3.1bn acquisition of Germany’s third largest cable TV operator Kabel Baden-Wuerttemberg from Swedish private equity group EQT Partners AB, in a deal where the antitrust permission to go ahead with the deal was overturned by the German courts in August last year.

At Freshfields, a four-strong Amsterdam-based team advised Ziggo led by partner Jan Willem van der Staay, while Shearman & Sterling acted for Ziggo as legal counsel on financing matters, with City-based European capital markets partner Apostolos Gkoutzinis leading the team.

New York-headquartered Shearman previously acted for Liberty Global on its $23.3bn acquisition of Virgin Media in 2013.

Subject to the necessary approvals, Liberty Global and Ziggo anticipate that the offer will close in the second half of 2014.

Elsewhere, Dentons and Lawrence Graham have advised Hurricane Energy, which focuses on oil reserves in reservoirs beneath the North Sea and has already signed investment and drilling deals with BP and Transocean, as it prepares to float on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange with a value of £272m.

Hurricane, which is expected to start drilling in the second half of 2014, was led by Dentons corporate partner Jeremy Cohen, alongside energy partner Danielle Beggs and environment partner Sam Boileu.

Cenkos Securities acted as Hurricane’s nomad and broker, with Lawrence Graham’s head of corporate Geoff Gouriet advising alongside senior associates Rebecca Gordon and Jenna Beever.

sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Dealwatch: HSF, Clifford Chance and Slaughters take the spotlight in Cineworld expansion

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Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) has landed a role advising Barclays, JP Morgan and Investec on Cineworld Group‘s £107m rights issue and £504m acquisition of Warsaw-listed Cinema City International, a deal announced yesterday (09 January) that would create a cinema chain with almost 2,000 screens across Europe and Israel. Corporate partners Mike Flockhart and Chris Haynes are leading the team, with US securities advice from Steve Thierbach.

Slaughter and May is advising Cineworld, with corporate partners Mark Zerdin and David Johnson taking the lead.The firm is part of a team of other international firms including Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison (US law), Sołtysiński Kawecki & Szlęzak (Polish law), Djingov, Gouginski, Kyutchukov & Velichkov (Bulgarian law), Nagy és Trócsányi (Hungarian law), Havel, Holásek & Partners (Czech and Slovakian law), Nestor Nestor Diculescu Kingston Petersen (Romanian law) and Herzog Fox & Neeman (Israeli law).

Clifford Chance is acting for Cinema City, with a team led by corporate partners Jonny Myers and Spencer Baylin. Linklaters also has a role on the deal advising other financial advisers.

The deal, should it complete, would combine Cineworld’s 101 UK cinemas with Cinema City’s 99 cinemas that are spread over Israel, Poland and the Czech Republic. The move comes as Cineworld’s rivals have expanded overseas, with Odeon operating in seven countries while Vue Entertainment has a presence in five.

Cineworld’s market value was £590m yesterday while Cinema City was valued at 1.5bn Polish Zloty (£305m). The major attraction of Cinema City could well be the growth that it has enjoyed between 2009 and 2012. During that period, the company saw revenues increase by 14.2% and is reported to have a strong pipeline of screen openings in place to ensure further growth.

The cinema industry has been particularly active deal-wise over the past year: in June 2013 Allen & Overy, Ashurst, Debevoise & Plimpton and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom all took roles on the £935m sale of Vue Entertainment by private equity firm Doughty Hanson to Canadian investors OMERS Private Equity and Alberta Investment Management Corporation.

david.stevenson@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Asia-Pacific: Clifford Chance unveils new Indonesia association as K&L Gates goes big in Japan

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With only Asia showing any real growth in M&A work for law firms during 2013, it is unsurprising that major international players are focusing their expansion plans in the region. Clifford Chance today (10 January) announced a formal association with Indonesian firm Linda Widyati & Partners (LWP), while K&L Gates has bulked up its Tokyo office with the addition of real estate and disputes partners. Earlier in the week, Duane Morris announced a new office in Shanghai.

LWP is a boutique firm, established by Linda Widyati and Dezi Kirana who have over 20 years’ experience in the core areas of focus for Clifford Chance: corporate/M&A, banking and finance and capital markets.

Clifford Chance has advised clients on Indonesian matters for more than 30 years and this alliance with LWP is not the firm’s first foray into the Indonesian market. It formed a non-exclusive agreement Indonesian firm, Mochtar Karuwin Komar at the turn of the millennium, a deal that is still in place, although a spokesperson for the firm said the new association with LWP would now take precedence.

‘The establishment of this association signals our commitment to provide our clients with world-class legal advice to meet their evolving needs in this dynamic market. LWP share our values and our commitment to the highest standards of legal advice and client service,’ said Peter Charlton, Clifford Chance’s managing partner for Asia Pacific.

The firm also relocated the head of M&A in Amsterdam, Jeroen Koster to the Asia Pacific region where he will lead the association for Clifford Chance. ‘Clifford Chance is strongly committed to Indonesia. The association with LWP will provide significant benefits to our clients,’ he said.

Clifford Chance’s latest move further enhances the firm’s capabilities in the region. In 2012, the firm launched into formal alliance with Singapore litigation boutique Cavanagh Law, giving the firm much-sought-after access to Singapore’s domestic litigation market. The firm also opened in Sydney and Perth in 2011, giving it further access to the lucrative Asia Pacific market.

Indonesia has been a destination of choice in Asia in recent, with Taylor Wessing entering into an alliance with Hanafiah Ponggawa & Partners in 2013; and White & Case partnering up with Indonesian firm MD & Partners in January last year, six years after ending its alliance with local firm Ali Budiardjo Nugroho Reksodiputro. Clyde & Co also joined up with Lubis Ganie Surowidjojo in September 2013, while DLA Piper signed an agreement with Ivan Almaida Baely & Firmansyah in May.

Elsewhere, K&L Gates has enhanced its Tokyo offering with the addition of Takahiro Hoshino and Takahiro Tsumagari as partners in its commercial disputes and real estate investment, development, and finance practices respectively.

Hoshino comes from his own firm, Hoshino & Partners. He advises clients on a range of litigation matters including domestic and international labour law as well as a variety of corporate legal matters such as strategic restructurings, joint ventures and mergers and acquisitions. Hoshino was also a judge at the Tokyo and Utsunomiya District Courts

Tsumagari joins K&L Gates from respected local firm Atsumi & Sakai where he led the international trade and tax team. He advises and represents leading Japanese and foreign corporations on real estate and structured financings and matters.

‘This is a real boost to our team in Tokyo and the region more broadly. We are seeing increased business confidence in the Japanese economy, which will inevitability flow through to more activity for clients,’ said David Tang, managing partner for K&L Gates in Asia.

The firm bulked up substantially in Asia Pacific last year, starting with a merger with Australia’s Middleton’s in January which added around 400 lawyers to its ranks, before opening an office in Seoul later in the year. The firm now has 11 offices in Asia and Australia to serve its Asia Pacific clients.

Meanwhile, 600-lawyer Global 100 firm Duane Morris, which enjoyed a 12% rise in revenues in the last financial year, has announced that it is to open its first China office in Shanghai, through Duane Morris & Selvam, its joint law venture in Asia. The firm is currently awaiting approval from the PRC’s Ministry of Justice to open its foreign representative office.

The firm’s joint venture has given the US firm coverage of the south east Asia market with offices in Singapore, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. Leon Yee, managing director of Duane Morris & Selvam, will serve as chief representative of the Shanghai office which will be staffed by five lawyers in total.

‘Our launch in China builds upon the firm’s substantial growth and successes in Asia during the past several years, as well as our extensive experience handling China-focused matters for numerous multinational companies,’ said Duane Morris chairman and chief executive officer John Soroko.

David.stevenson@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Real estate round-up: Clifford Chance, Taylor Wessing and Burges Salmon start New Year on front foot

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Clifford Chance (CC), Taylor Wessing and Burges Salmon have emerged as the pace setters for real estate work in the first few days of 2014, with each having completed significant UK commercial property deals recently.

Clifford Chance advised GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, on both the purchase of a 50% interest in the Broadgate Estate from Blackstone Real Estate Partners Europe III and Blackstone Real Estate Partners VI and GIC’s 50:50 joint venture with British Land to ‘enable the future development of the estate,’ according to the firm.

The joint venture aims to focus on widening Broadgate’s appeal from a traditional City-focused occupier base to ‘cater for the growing creative district centred around Shoreditch and the emerging tech-focused area around Old Street’. British Land’s 2013 annual report cites the portfolio value of Broadgate at over £3bn.

As befits a deal of this scale, a very senior multi-disciplinary team was led by corporate partner Mark Poulton, alongside global head of corporate and incoming global managing partner Matthew Layton. The deal also featured London head of real estate Jonathan Solomon, corporate partner Adrian Levy, real estate finance partner Jane Cheong Tung Sing, real estate partner Nigel Howorth, head of real estate tax David Saleh, corporate partner Steve Curtis, and antitrust partner Greg Olsen.

Poulton said: ‘We were delighted to advise GIC on this major real estate acquisition and were able to field a multi-disciplinary team in order to meet the client’s requirements. This type of complex corporate real estate transaction is where we can really add value to our clients by bringing together our corporate, real estate, real estate tax, real estate finance specialists from across our real estate sector group.’

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett’s City-based corporate partner Michael Wolfson led the team advising Blackstone, alongside Berwin Leighton Paisner.

Meanwhile Taylor Wessing advised longstanding client Wainbridge, a private real estate investment group, on the purchase of 11-15 Grosvenor Crescent, SW1, from the Grosvenor Estate, in a £350m scheme that will comprise eleven exclusive apartments overlooking Belgravia, with associated parking and leisure amenities.

Taylor Wessing real estate partner Keith Barnett led the team, which included finance partner Martin Yells, and corporate tax partner Robert Young. The team also advised on the related acquisition and development debt funding provided by Urban Exposure and Letter One, marking the latter’s first financing in the European real estate market.

Principal and co-founder of Wainbridge, Rob Rackind, said: ‘Taylor Wessing were instrumental in our achieving the acquisition of this prime freehold site and in securing its funding. They have provided us with outstanding support.’

Meanwhile, Bristol-based top-50 firm Burges Salmon has acted for the Crown Estate, for which it is a panel firm, on the sale of Honda’s biggest storage depot in Cabot Park, Avonmouth to the BlackRock UK Property Fund and Canmoor for £31m.

Led by senior associate Matthew Sims, the deal forms part of a spate of £130m transactions that the Crown Estate unveiled at at the end of 2013.

Commenting on the sale, Sims said: ‘The firm’s real estate team acted for the Crown Estate in its purchase of Honda’s site in Avonmouth in 2005 and also in the sale of part of Honda’s original site in 2011 for £10.5m, which is now used by The Co-operative Group as a major regional distribution centre. Given our previous involvement, we were delighted to act for the Crown Estate again in its strategic disposal of this site.’

Sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Board level appointment for incoming Tui general counsel

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Leading European travel group Tui AG has become the latest major corporate to announce a board level legal appointment as former Clifford Chance (CC) lawyer and Demag Cranes head of legal Hilka Schneider joins as general counsel (GC).

Schneider, who in 2008 took over as head of the legal department at Demag and in 2011 saw the company through its $1.4bn hostile takeover by New York Stock Exchange-listed heavy equipment manufacturer Terex, will join the management board of TUI and will assume responsibility for group legal affairs, governance, risk and compliance.

German-headquartered Tui’s three business sectors are TUI Travel; TUI Hotels & Resorts; and Cruises, with its 2011/12 group turnover standing at €18.3bn.

As of mid-2014 Schneider, a corporate lawyer who started her legal career at CC in 2000 before joining DAX-listed Deutsche Post DHL in 2005, will also head the executive board office of the company.

Schneider’s appointment will take effect on 1 March 2014 but she joined the legal department of TUI in the New Year to ensure a ‘professional transition in the weeks ahead’, a company statement said yesterday (7 January).

Chairman of the TUI executive board, Friedrich Joussen said: ‘In her roles with Deutsche Post DHL and Demag Cranes, [Schneider] worked in other listed companies and brings extensive experience in transactions and the capital markets to us. It is important to me that the TUI management board has a good mixture of experienced TUI managers and managers who bring expertise from elsewhere. This enriches the company’s diversity and our ability to make decisions.’

Schneider takes over from retiring veteran Andreas Göhmann and Joussen added that he was ‘particularly grateful’ to the outgoing lawyer, ‘who has served for 16 years as head in-house counsel, providing significant support and contributions to the development of Preussag and TUI.’

Other recent high profile in-house moves have seen pharma giant Pfizer’s influential GC and executive leadership member Amy Schulman in December step down from her role just weeks before she was expected to assume a new role as head of vaccines, oncology and consumer healthcare business, while the former chairman of failed New York firm Dewey & LeBoeuf has secured a heavyweight role as legal advisor to the government of Ras al Khairmah, one of the seven emirates of the UAE.

sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

CC formally launches ‘first-of-its-kind’ Saudi partnership but Riyadh remains a tough nut to crack

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Clifford Chance today (6 January) formally announced the launch of its joint Saudi and foreign-owned law firm in Riyadh, boasting an institutionalised career path for Saudi lawyers as it becomes the first international firm to establish an integrated partnership in the Kingdom.

The transactional lawyers of Al-Jadaan & Partners, Khalid Al-Abdulkareem and Abdulaziz Al-Abduljabbar, join Clifford Chance as partners to create a five-partner team alongside English lawyers Omar Rashid, Paul Latto and office head Tim Plews.

Clifford Chance has been in partnership with Al-Jadaan since 1998 and will maintain its co-operation with the firm, with managing partner Mohammed Al-Jadaan continuing as a special adviser to the Magic Circle firm.

The re-launched office, which opened its doors on 1 January, brings the total number of permanent Saudi and foreign lawyers to 30, with 20 support staff. Fifty percent of the lawyers in Riyadh are Saudi nationals.

The development, first announced in March last year, is said to be the next step in the evolution of the 3017-lawyer firm’s long term connection with Saudi Arabia and part of its broader strategy for ambitious growth across the Middle East and Africa, with the last three years seeing office launches in Doha, Casablanca and Istanbul.

In terms of building its local brand, the move has enabled the already top-tier practice to boast that this first-of-a-kind partnership reinforces Clifford Chance’s commitment to Saudi Arabia, creating new employment opportunities for Saudi nationals.

Mohammed Al-Jadaan, who together with partners Yousef Al-Jadaan and Abdullah Al-Hashim, will now focus on litigation, mediation, legal strategies and structuring related advice, said: ‘This development is great news for the Saudi legal market and its young talent who will now have the opportunity to train with and develop their careers in one of the world’s leading international firms, ensuring they benefit from an institutionalised career path. I am confident that the service offering of the team in Saudi will reach new heights now that it has the absolute commitment of Clifford Chance.’

Clifford Chance outgoing managing partner, David Childs added: ‘Ambitious domestic organisations, such as those we advise in Saudi, as well as our multinational clients want us to be able to provide this combination of deep local expertise and broad-reaching international experience.

‘I am therefore delighted that we are now operating a joint Saudi and international owned partnership and that we will be the first international firm to offer young Saudis the opportunity to develop their careers with us.’

As newer entrants continue to be tantalised by Saudi’s wealth and transactional opportunities Clifford Chance has ratcheted up an enviable corporate and finance deal book, including last year advising Almarai Company on its US$250 million bid to acquire Saudi Stock Exchange-listed Hail Agriculture Development Company – the first takeover bid for a listed company in Saudi.

But while Saudi’s legal market takes steps towards increased liberalisation – last week saw one of the first female law firms launched in Saudi by Bayan Mahmoud Al-Zahran, after regulation was relaxed last year enabling women to gain a license to practise –  international law firms continue to find Riyadh a tough market to crack, with Herbert Smith Freehills last April announcing that its exclusive association with Saudi Arabian firm Al-Ghazzawi Professional Association would come to an end in August.

Legal Business

Legal Business

LLP results 2012/13 – CC reveals drop in management committee pay as LG records further decline in turnover

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Clifford Chance’s (CC’s) limited liability partnership accounts for the 2012/13 year have revealed a 5% drop in total remuneration paid to the firm’s management committee, according to the latest filings with Companies House.

Published on 23 December, the accounts show that the 16-strong management committee team received £18m this year, compared to £19m for the 2011/12 financial year.

Further figures from the report show that net assets attributable to members amounted to £219m; a decrease of £79m from the previous year, while net cash at the year-end stood at £103m, equating to a drop of £17m from the net cash figure as at 30 April 2012.

A geographical breakdown of firm revenue, which is recorded as £1,271m compared to £1,303m the previous year, illustrates that the firm’s UK offices netted the highest revenue, totalling £443m (unchanged since 2011/12) while its revenues in Continental Europe saw the greatest decline, down to £467m compared with £492m in 2011/12.

Revenue contributions from the Americas, Asia Pacific and the Middle East remained broadly static at £144m (£144m in 2012/11); £179m (£185m in 2011/12); and £38m (£39m in 2011/12) respectively.

Meanwhile, the average number of partners increased to 577 from 568, while the number of associates remained flat at 2,324.

The Magic Circle firm’s accounts further state that fees due from clients stand at £354m (compared with £330m in 2011/12) with £109m of those fees due to the UK offices, while less than 5% of billed revenue is attributable to a single client relationship.

The results comes as LLP accounts filed by Lawrence Graham, which recently secured a £170m tie-up with Midlands giant Wragge & Co to go live in May this year, show a greater drop in revenue for the 2012/13 financial year than previously reported.

Turnover fell 10% to £50.6m compared to £56m the previous year, while profit before members’ remuneration and profit shares decreased to £14.1m from £14.2m. In July, the firm posted a turnover drop of 8% to £51.8m and unveiled a 14% drop in profit per equity partner from £304,000 to £260,000.

Fees billed for the 2012/13 year also dropped to £50.2m compared to £54.2m in 2011/12, of which £49m is netted from the UK region.

sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Post Clifford Chance role for Childs as Financial Reporting Council announce his appointment as Chair

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Clifford Chance (CC) outgoing managing partner David Childs has been appointed by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) as chair of its conduct committee, taking over the role from Herbert Smith Freehills consultant Richard Fleck.

The FRC is the independent regulator for the accounting and actuarial profession and its conduct committee oversees the conduct division, responsible for the monitoring of recognised supervisory and qualifying bodies, audit quality reviews, corporate reporting reviews, and professional discipline.

Baroness Hogg, chairman of the FRC, said: ‘I am delighted that David Childs will become the new chair of the conduct committee. His experience of the legal issues facing corporate Britain will be invaluable to the vital work of the FRC as it continues to deploy the greater powers it has acquired since reform ever more effectively.’

Corporate lawyer Childs will officially stand down as CC’s managing partner in May, where he will be succeeded by incoming chief Matthew Layton for a four-year term.

On his upcoming role, Childs said: ‘A strong but fair regulatory approach is critical to fostering investment in the UK’s corporate sector. I look forward to supporting the FRC in its vital role ensuring high standards of professional behaviour are maintained.’

Announced in May, Baroness Hogg is herself due to step down as chairman of the FRC when a successor is appointed, having been in the role for three years. Her term formally ended in April however, she agreed to remain as chairman to allow the search for her successor to be properly conducted and the changeover ‘executed smoothly’, an FRC statement said.

sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Clifford Chance wins double pharma mandate as Merck buys AZ Electronic Materials and Amdipharm buys Acbur

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With the pharmaceutical industry driving a number of recent high value M&A deals, Clifford Chance has won mandates on two significant instructions in the sector, including advising AZ Electronic Materials on a £1.57bn cash offer by German pharma giant Merck.

The transaction was led by corporate partner Tim Lewis and includes antitrust partner Alex Nourry, Luxembourg corporate partner Pierre Gromnicki, employee benefits partner Sonia Gilbert and tax partner David Harkness.

Allen & Overy (A&O) advised Merck, with a team led by corporate partners Richard Browne and Michael Ulmer along with Luxembourg corporate head Mark Feider.

The deal will see AZ shareholders receive 403.5 pence in cash for each AZ share, which values the share capital of AZ, which is a global producer of high quality, high-purity specialty chemical materials for the electronics market, at approximately £1.57bn and suggests an enterprise value of around £1.75bn.

As AZ is incorporated in Luxembourg and listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), the offer is subject to the shared jurisdiction of the Takeover Panel in London and the Luxembourg regulator.

CC previously advised AZ on its £441m initial public offering in 2010, led by capital markets partners Adrian Cartwright and Iain Hunter.

Last week also saw CC announce its role advising Amdipharm Mercury on its $56m acquisition of Sweden-based specialty pharmaceutical company Abcur. Amdipharm is an international specialty pharmaceuticals group formed from the merger of Amdipharm and Mercury Pharma. Clifford Chance acted for private equity firm Cinven when it acquired Amdipharm and Mercury Pharma in 2012.

The CC team advising Amco in the Abcur acquisition was led by corporate partner Andre Duminy and Nordic firm Roschier advised on Swedish law aspects.

Abcur was advised by Swedish firm Lindahl with a team led by corporate partner Johan Karlefors, who specialises in employment life sciences and transport.

Other big pharma deals over the past two months include Novartis’ $1.68bn sale of its blood transfusion diagnostics unit to Barcelona-based Grifols, with A&O acting for Novartis and Proskauer Rose and Osborne Clarke’s Spanish arm for the buyer.

Statistics last month from Dealogic showed that pharma deals have dramatically outperformed the wider global M&A market.

david.stevenson@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Hefty fines: Cleary, Slaughters and CC advise on banks’ €1.7bn rate-rigging settlement

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A collection of some of Europe’s strongest antitrust practices have been advising some of the world’s largest global banks as they today (4 December) agreed fines with the European Commission for their participation in illegal cartels to rig interest rates.

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, Slaughter and May and Clifford Chance were among the law firms advising a total of eight international financial institutions – including the Royal Bank of Scotland, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan, and Citigroup – who have been fined a total of €1.7bn for their roles in the cartels.

Four of the institutions participated in a cartel relating to interest rate derivatives denominated in the euro currency while six participated in one or more bilateral cartels relating to interest rate derivatives denominated in Japanese yen. As is standard procedure for competition investigations, the companies’ fines were reduced by 10% for agreeing to settle.

Barclays, advised by Clifford Chance’s competition partners Elizabeth Morony and Oliver Bretz, escaped a fine in its entirety for revealing the existence of the euro cartel, avoiding a total pay-out of €690m for its participation in the infringement.

UBS, advised by Gibson Dunn & Crutcher‘s City disputes head Philip Rocher alongside Brussels-based David Wood, also received full immunity for revealing the existence of the cartels, avoiding an estimated fine of €2.5bn for its participation in five of the seven infringements.

Meanwhile, the Brussels-based Cleary team advising Citigroup, which received the lowest fine of £58m (€70m), was led by EU competition partner Robbert Snelders.

King & Wood Mallesons SJ Berwin‘s City-based partner Tom Usher was by instructed RBS as the firm advised the bank on its competition breaches leading to a £325m (€391m) settlement with the EC.

Elsewhere, Magic Circle firm Slaughter and May had competition litigation head Michael Rowe and head of disputes Deborah Finkler act for Deutsche Bank, which was levied the highest sanction out of all the banks worth £600m (£724m).

Pinsent Masons‘ senior competition partner Alan Davis advised broker RP Martin, which was fined £205,000.

According to the BBC, banks that have not yet settled fines but are being investigated include HSBC and Credit Agricole, as well as JPMorgan, which accepted a fine for rigging in one market but not another.

Speaking in relation to the settlement, the Commission’s vice-president in charge of competition policy Joaquín Almunia, said: ‘What is shocking about the Libor and Euribor scandals is not only the manipulation of benchmarks, which is being tackled by financial regulators worldwide, but also the collusion between banks who are supposed to be competing with each other. Today’s decision sends a clear message that the Commission is determined to fight and sanction these cartels in the financial sector. Healthy competition and transparency are crucial for financial markets to work properly, at the service of the real economy rather than the interests of a few.’

Sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk