FAQs

A broad-based definition of banking transactions, which include both borrower and lender clients. The following topics are included:

- Acquisition finance: transactions involving arranging finance for acquisitions acting for either the lender or the borrower;

- General bank lending: syndicated lending, structured finance, leveraged finance, NPLs

- Refinancing: The refinancing and restructuring of existing loans and debtor in possession financing is also included.

 

Capital Markets: Derivatives includes the regulatory and transactional legal advice regarding derivatives products. These include exchange-traded derivatives, OTC derivatives, securitised derivatives and interest rate derivatives.

 

Capital Markets: Equity includes advice on IPOs, share buybacks, follow-on offerings, right offerings, capital increases, accelerated bookbuilds and block trades.

Capital Markets: Structured Finance Structured finance, which encompasses CDOs (both cash and synthetic), repackagings, and hybrid synthetic and structured note products.

This section encompasses contentious and non-contentious matters arising under EU, domestic and international competition law, including cartels, abuse of a dominant market position and merger control. Unless a more specific subsection exists, areas such as antitrust, state aid and public procurement are also considered here.

Construction covers contractual advisor work within the construction industry for both the suppliers (eg developers, contractors, engineers and architects), and those clients employing these types of companies eg corporates or state authorities on their building plans. Our construction sections cover both litigious and non-litigious matters.

This broad category covers both public company and private equity (including venture capital) matters. The chapter includes company acquisitions, dispositions and capitalisations, entity selection and formation, operating and partnership agreements, securities and governance matters. Also covers those transactions designed to help restructuring within companies and their subsidiaries by change of ownership. However in jurisdictions where another more specialised section covers any of the work mentioned above, that work should be submitted in that section, and not in Corporate / M&A (e.g. Equity capital markets work in Capital Markets, venture capital in Private Equity, financing work in Banking & Finance, transactions involving real estate assets in Real Estate)

Priority is placed on primary representatives, those acting for buyers and sellers.

Distribution/Commercial Contracts

Covers both contentious and non-contentious employment matters relating to day-to-day business issues as well as mergers and takeovers. Includes employment litigation related to sex, race, age discrimination. Issues relating to employee immigration, transfer of employees, working hours and pensions are also considered in this section, unless a more specific section exists within the jurisdiction.

Environment work includes regulatory compliance, litigation and enforcement actions relating to air, water, wetlands, waste and endangered species. Matters relating to the environmental impact of construction and development projects, consumer products, environmentally detrimental incidents and pollution are also considered here.

Environmental, Social and Governance

 

Intellectual Property covers advisory work and disputes related to patent, copyright and trademarks. Litigation concerning trade secrets also features.

Priority for ranking is given to those firms and individuals who attract clients specifically for their expertise in this area.

International Trade/WTO

This section ranks those firms and individuals advising in the world of investment funds. It covers work on behalf of sponsors and institutional investors, including fund formation, fund raising, investments, asset management regulatory matters, hybrid funds, fund-of-funds and spin-outs.  It does not include transactional work, disputes or the acquisition of assets (which should be included in Corporate/Disputes/Real Estate).  In jurisdictions where there is also a Private Equity section, work relating to fund formation and structuring should be included in the Investment Funds section.

In general, our broad definition of Litigation covers the full course of a dispute such as pre-trial negotiations, preparation for trial, trial, appeals and enforcement proceedings. Litigation in France covers mainly commercial disputes. White-collar crime cases and arbitration mandates should be included in the respective sections (WCC and International Arbitration).

 In France, Venture capital work should be included on the submissions for the Venture Capital subsection.

 

Private Equity: Buyouts (Acting for Management)

This chapter focuses on the development, acquisition and divestitures of large projects within the infrastructure and energy markets. Clients in this sector include sponsors, lenders, project originators and multilateral agencies and development banks. This section includes the development of refineries, pipelines, LNG and petrochemical terminals, power plants and wind power, waste-to-energy and hydropower technology. It also covers exploration, licensing, operation agreements and regulatory compliance across conventional, renewable and nuclear energy, as well as mining and minerals. It also features private and state-sponsored infrastructure projects, including motorway, toll road and bridge developments, rail and light rail systems and water treatment plants. It also includes the development of social infrastructure projects, such as hospitals, schools, housing and prisons.

Projects & Energy: Energy: Regulatory

Subsection focusing on the regulatory aspects of energy law. This includes regulatory advice on permitting and licensing as well as representation in contentious regulatory cases.

The work usually involves advising authorities and companies from regulated industries on constitutional, administrative, subsidy and state aid issues, as well as  advice to private clients on concessions, PPP and public procurement.

Public International Law

This table ranks firms and individuals advising on cases of insolvency, bankruptcy and the restructuring of distressed assets. Restructuring work should be limited to situations of financial distress and work aimed at avoiding liquidation or insolvency. This can include administration, receivership, distressed M&A and pre-pack sales.  General corporate restructuring should be submitted in Corporate / M&A. The restructuring of financial arrangements or instruments should be submitted in Banking & Finance.

Data Protection covers regulatory advice on data protection and privacy compliance, cases of data security breaches, representation of clients in investigations, enforcement actions or litigation relating to data protection and privacy. Work of an international nature can include advising clients with multinational operations on data security issues relating to cross-border transfers of data, such as in large-scale outsourcing transactions involving a number of countries, and on global or multi-jurisdictional privacy compliance programmes.

 

This section includes outsourcing between corporates and suppliers of IT services, IT procurement and regulatory matters in the sector. This section also considers M&A activity in the sector but places priority on those firms and individuals that demonstrate a specialised knowledge in the requirements of the sector. IT-related data protection is also included in this section unless there is a separate Data Protection ranking.

Media includes contentious and non-contentious advertising and marketing matters as well as activity relating to the Film & TV, music, publishing and theatre industries. This includes production, financing and distribution aspects.

Telecommunications includes transactional and litigation advice to telecoms companies and wireless operators, and the regulatory issues that such companies face. Other matters include interconnection and resales laws, multimedia agreements and licensing activity.

This section covers a broad range of work carried out by lawyers for clients in the aviation and related industries. Matters include transactional and regulatory advice, as well as insurance and non-insurance related disputes, including commercial and non-commercial aviation accidents.

Aviation Finance: This table focuses on firms and individuals acting for clients such as leasing companies, banks, airlines and other financial institutions. This section covers financing, including ECA’s, EETC’s and government-supported financings. It includes bankruptcy, operating leases, including JOLCOs, as well as financing of commercial aircrafts, corporate jets and helicopters.    

 

Shipping includes wet-shipping and dry-shipping cases: - Wet-shipping: Refers to incidents and issues arising while at sea. Includes accidents, collisions, salvage and environmental liabilities. - Dry-shipping: Refers to matters arising while not at sea. Includes contractual arrangements for construction, financing and registration of vessels, customs and licensing, and documentation relating to charter-parties and bills of lading. Also includes contentious matters such as ownership rights, contractual breaches, insurance and reinsurance, ship arrests and the commissioning/decommissioning of vessels. For a firm or an individual to achieve a ranking in this section, they must be seen to have core shipping expertise and be considered by clients as a go-to for specific shipping knowledge.

This section covers in-court criminal proceedings that have to do with corruption and financial crimes mainly. Matters include tax offences, money laundering, fraud, professional negligence, bribery, corruption and environmental crime. WCC covers work on behalf of corporate clients as well as private clients.

This section focuses on employee benefits, including share ownership schemes, the implementation of compensation plans, as well as related taxation issues. It also includes lawyers who handle disputes following the implementation of shareholding plans.

Our Planning section covers work including: planning applications for the development, construction or change of use of a building or buildings; advising on local urban law (Plan Local d’Urbanisme); strategies relating to development projects and urban regeneration schemes; advising on evolutions of planning regulations and planning litigations International Arbitration This section features advice on the resolution of international disputes through arbitration.  

This section ranks those individuals who act as arbitrators on international pan-European cases and who are widely recognised as the go-to arbitrators for such cases.