Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

Senior Partner: Georgia Dawson
Managing Partners: Alan Mason, Rick van Aerssen and Rafique Bachour
Office Managing Partner, London: Claire Wills
Number of Partners: 400+
Number of Lawyers: 2,800+

UK Offices: London, Manchester.
International Offices: Abu Dhabi, Amsterdam, Bahrain, Beijing, Berlin, Brussels, Dubai, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong, Madrid, Milan, Moscow, Munich, New York, Paris, Rome, Shanghai, Silicon Valley, Singapore, Tokyo, Vienna and Washington, DC.

CONTACTS
Finance: Simon Johnson
Dispute Resolution: Sarah Parkes
Antitrust, Competition & Trade: Simon Priddis
Corporate: Andrew Hutchings
People & Reward: Kathleen Healy
Real Estate: Alexander Watt
Tax: Helen Buchanan

THE FIRM Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer (Freshfields) is a global law firm with a long-standing track record of successfully supporting the world’s leading national and multinational corporations, financial institutions and governments on ground-breaking and business-critical mandates. The firm’s 2,800 plus lawyers deliver results worldwide through its own offices and alongside leading local firms. Freshfields’ commitment, local and multi-national expertise and business know-how means its clients rely on the firm when it matters most.

PRINCIPAL AREAS OF WORK
Antitrust, Competition & Trade: Freshfields has an unrivalled market share of in-depth Phase II merger investigations by the European Commission. It advises financial institutions, governments and other clients worldwide through complex remedy negotiations across all sectors on all competition issues, including:
■ Merger control
■ Abuse of dominance
■ Cartel investigations
■ Follow-on & other antitrust litigation
■ Compliance
■ State aid
■ Public procurement
Corporate: In the past few years, Freshfields has advised on more cross-border M&A deals than any other law firm in the world. It has also consistently topped the European, Asia-Pacific and UK league tables. Recent highlights include advising:
■ London Stock Exchange on its acquisition of Refinitiv
■ Cazoo on its £7bn business combination with SPAC AJAX and subsequent listing on the NYSE
■ Aon on the sale of Willis Towers Watson assets to Gallagher for approx. $3.57bn.
■ Comcast Corporation on its £30.6bn cash offer to acquire the entire share capital of Sky plc
■ Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest brewer and owner of the Budweiser, Stella Artois and Corona brands, on its acquisition of SABMiller plc, the world’s second largest brewer and owner of the Peroni, Grolsch, Pilsner and Castle brands, valuing SABMiller at £79bn
Disputes: Freshfields has helped clients manage some of the most high-profile and business critical disputes, multi-jurisdictional investigations, competition claims, patent litigation and politically sensitive arbitrations in recent history. Freshfields is the market leader for arbitration, competition, intellectual property, investigations, regulation and complex commercial litigation. The firm has been particularly active in the technology, financial services, energy and consumer sectors.
Finance: The firm has finance lawyers worldwide, covering restructuring and insolvency, banking, structured finance, derivatives and capital markets, asset finance and project finance. Freshfields has recently advised:
■ Malaysia Airlines group on its global restructuring, including the first use of a UK scheme to reduce liabilities under aircraft leases.
■ HDFC on the first ever corporate issuance of Synthetic INR Notes, otherwise known as ‘Masala Bonds’
■ Zero Bypass Limited on construction of Slovakia’s D4 Highway and R7 Expressway
People & Reward: Freshfields work on all aspects of labour and employment law and advise global employers on everything from major projects (eg M&A transactions, cross border business restructuring), compliance and policies, whistleblowing and workplace investigations as well as hiring and firing. The team is equally expert in remuneration and reward matters and the design and implementation of bespoke incentive plans. It has significant experience advising on the most complex pensions projects, including liability management, funding and covenant support and scheme consolidations.
Real Estate: Freshfields’ real estate practice advises on investment transactions, development projects, coinvestment structures, such as joint ventures, and all aspects of corporate real estate. The firm works for some of the largest, most high-profile organisations in the sector: private equity, sovereign wealth and pension funds, real estate investment trusts, and property developers and financiers.
Regulatory: Freshfields are market leaders in proactively identifying risk arising from legislative changes, helping multinational businesses to minimise it and working closely with regulatory authorities in multiple jurisdictions. The firm’s regulatory lawyers are spread across several practice groups, including antitrust, competition and trade, data and IP, people and reward, tax and financial regulatory, with vast experience of working on strategic advisory, transactional, investigative and enforcement issues, including:
■ State aid
■ Cartel investigations
■ Merger control
■ Pricing and sales strategies
■ Data protection and security
■ Workplace investigations
Tax: Freshfields’ tax practice advises clients across all sectors on their most exacting deals, tax investigations and disputes, and consultancy tax matters, worldwide. The tax practice has recently advised on several of the most significant cross-border M&A mandates, including the London Stock Exchange Group’s proposed acquisition of Refinitiv and RELX Group on the simplification of its UK/Netherlands dual-listed company structure into a single parent company listed in London, Amsterdam and New York via a cross-border merger of RELX NV into RELX PLC.