Herbert Smith Freehills has been awarded "TMT M&A Legal Adviser" by the UK TMT M&A Awards 2017.
The award is in recognition of the outstanding work the firm is doing in the TMT sector, including recent deals advising Sky on a £18.5 billion recommended takeover offer from 21st Century Fox (the second-largest M&A deal announced in the UK market in 2016 and the fifth-largest TMT deal globally), Time Warner on the EU merger control and regulatory aspects of AT&T's proposed acquisition of Time Warner (the largest transaction in any sector globally in 2016), The Panel on Takeovers and Mergers on the Post-Offer Undertakings given by Softbank Group Corp on its recommended £24 billion takeover of ARM Holdings (the largest M&A deal in the UK in 2016 and fourth largest TMT deal globally). Our other recent TMT M&A deals include advising Uber on the combination of its ridesharing business in Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus and Georgia with Yandex Taxi, valuing the combined business at US$3.725 billion, Hutchison Whampoa on its proposed £10.25 billion (US$13.1bn) acquisition of Telefónica O2 in the UK, Apple on its US$1 billion investment in data centres in China together with Guizhou-Cloud Big Data, Google on its investment in the Pacific Light Cable Network subsea cable project and many more.
This latest award keeps up the flow of industry recognition for our TMT team including "Financial Services Outsourcing Project of the Year" at the Global Sourcing Awards 2017, "Highly Commended" for two categories at the FT Innovative Lawyers Awards 2017, namely: "Supporting Start-Ups" and "Managing Complexity & Scale", "IP / IT Team of the Year" at The Lawyer Awards 2017 and the TMT Team/Law Firm of the Year at the Asia Law Asia-Pacific Dispute Resolution Awards 2017, ALB Korea Law Awards 2017 and the ALB SE Asia Law Awards 2017. The team has also been "Highly Commended" for "TMT Team of the Year" at the recent British Legal Awards 2017.
David Coulling said: As a firm we understand the importance of technology in shaping our clients' businesses across all sectors and we are at the forefront of guiding them through the opportunities and risks associated with technological change. We are excited about market developments in 2018 and beyond, with technology transformation investments, collaborations and M&A in the transport, infrastructure, energy and pharma / health sectors all promising to be areas of interest for our existing and new clients.