Hats off to my old shop, Legal Week for a quality scoop on Allen & Overy (A&O) and O’Melveny & Myers doing the come-hither shuffle. As usual, various outfits have lifted it without credit or attempted to imply that they forecast it. I didn’t forecast it and haven’t given it more than a cursory kick-of-the-tyres because – deadlines – so I am just riffing off anorak industry knowledge rather than proper research. But it’s still enough to make a few observations about what it says about the global market and London elite in general and A&O specifically.
For A&O, a tie-up with O’Melveny would clearly be highly significant – only the second US merger for a Magic Circle firm and just about the largest of its kind nearly 20 years on from Clifford Chance’s disaster-strewn takeover of Rogers & Wells.
