Clifford Chance became Middle East law firm of the year last night, at IFLR's annual Middle East awards in Dubai. The firm also won equity team of the year and project finance team of the year, as well as working on three of 2007's winning deals.
Linklaters and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer also came away winners; Linklaters was named debt and equity-linked team of the year while Freshfields received M&A team of the year. Barclays Capital won the inaugural award for in-house team of the year.
IFLR's annual awards pick out the most innovative transactions of the previous year (for the Middle East, this period was July 2006 to June 2007) and rewards the law firms that worked on them. The other three sets of awards, for Europe, Asia and the Americas take place in March.
The winning deals in the Middle East were:
Debt and equity-linked deal of the year
DIFC sukuk (Allen & Overy and Linklaters)
Equity deal of the year
Saudi Vitrified Pipe Company IPO (Clifford Chance, Saud Mohamed Ali Al Shawaf and Yousef & Mohammed Al-Jadaan)
M&A deal of the year
Egyptian Fertilizers (Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Ibrachy Law Firm, Macfarlanes, Maples & Calder, Shalakany Law Office and Sharkawy & Sarhan)
Project finance deal of the year
Al Waha (Clifford Chance, Norton Rose, The Alliance of Abbas F Ghazzawi & Co and Hammad & Al-Mehdar, and Yousef & Mohammed Al-Jadaan)
The ceremony also rewarded the local law firms that worked on the most innovative deals last year. The winners for each jurisdiction were:
Egypt
Helmy Hamza & Partners (Baker & McKenzie)
Kuwait
Al-Sarraf & Al-Ruwayeh
Lebanon
Badri & Salim El Meouchi
Oman
Al Alawi Mansoor Jamal
Qatar
Hassan A Al-Khater
Saudi Arabia
Yousef & Mohammed Al-Jadaan
United Arab Emirates
Al Tamimi & Company