Transaction advisory in mergers and acquisitions dominated the references of the largest law firms in Slovakia in 2019-2020.
Several firms stated advisory services linked to the sale of OTP Banka bank among their references this year. When the bank was put up for sale, the news attracted a number of potential buyers, each of whom needed lawyers to do due diligence (legal and economic background check of the business before it is purchased, ed. note).
M&A: 10 largest law firms
- Hamala Kluch Víglaský
- RELEVANS
- Allen & Overy
- RUŽIČKA AND PARTNERS
- AK MCL
- TaylorWessing e/n/w/c
- HAVEL & PARTNERS
- Hillbridges
- Kinstellar
- SOUKENÍK – ŠTRPKA
Ranking created based on three factors derived from 2019 data, to which we gave different weights: number of deals from this category with a reward > €20.000 (70% weight); sales revenues (10% weight); number of attorneys (10% weight); number of associates practising > 3 years (6% weight); number of associates practising < 3 years (4% weight).
This year’s list of top deals includes many other transactions with an immediate impact on consumers because they concern companies whose services are used by thousands of clients every day. Such is the case of the purchase of the opticians’ network Fokus, the entry of the Wolt delivery service on the market, and the departure of the Falck rescue service provider from Slovakia.
A more detailed view
While in the previous four years, only the top ten largest law firms in Slovakia were asked to report their most important deals, this year the list was extended by more law firms. We have thus gained information on more than a hundred transactions in five traditional areas of the work of law firms, such as mergers and acquisitions (M&A), real estate, banking and finance, labour law, and litigation.
“We announce the largest law firms in each of these areas,” said Ján Pallo, who is responsible for the methodology of the Largest in Law ranking. The ranking of law firms is based on objective and measurable criteria, such as the number of lawyers, revenues, or the number of deals with a reward of over €20,000. The complete rankings can be viewed in the attached charts and tables.
A bank and an insurer
During the last year, speculations would appear repeatedly that OTP Banka was for sale, but such rumours had been present on the financial market for several years before. The Hungarian banking group OTP Bank had been having problems with its Slovak daughter company, regularly injected capital into it, in order to fulfil the ever stricter regulatory criteria.
