Profile: Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP - Who's Who Legal '70'

What is the Who's Who Legal '70'?

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION
The greater number of Cleary Gottlieb lawyers in this edition is thanks in no small part to the performance of the firm’s antitrust and competition department. Cleary’s contingent of 12 in the previous edition has expanded to 15  this year with new nominees in Paris, Brussels and Cologne. Lawyers from the firm have had a busy 12 months working on numerous landmark cases before European and national courts. Highlights include successfully representing Alrosa, Russia’s largest diamond company, before the Court of First Instance, persuading it to annul a decision by the European Comission that would have prohibited trade relations between Alrosa and De Beers. The firm also advised chemical company BASF before the Court of First Instance when it successfully appealed against a DG Comp decision imposing record fines for participation in a vitamins cartel.

Other key clients include British Airways, ENI, Dow Chemicals, Broadcom and GlaxoSmithKline to name but a few. The firm’s largest contingent is in Brussels where seven highly rated individuals make the grade. Antoine Winckler is a “star” according to sources and leads the Brussels group in terms of nominations. Nicholas Levy is another “standout guy” in the Belgian capital and respondents to our survey “have a great deal of respect for him”. Levy represented Euronext on its merger-of-equals with NYSE that created the first transatlantic securities exchange company. Mark Leddy once again performs exceptionally well in our Washington, DC research with one respondent to our survey remarking: “He deserves to be thought of as among the best of the best.” Leddy “brings a nice combination of government experience and trial savvy” and counselled Mittal Steel on matters including the EU and international merger control aspects of the company’s acquisition of Arcelor. Leddy is joined in the chapter by George Cary (“top flight”) who served as counsel to Medtronic in its US$3.9 billion acquisition of Kyphon. David Gelfand “does a great job for his clients”, according to one rival and he represented long-term client GlaxoSmithKline in its acquisition of Praecis Pharmaceuticals.

The “outstanding” Mario Siragusa is “still the star in Italy”. The past 12 months have seen him advising Telecom Italia on a wide variety of matters including the successful dismissal of a request for interim measures filed with Emilia Romagna Regional Administrative Tribunal by Fastweb. Giuseppe Scassellati-Sforzolini, who counselled French insurance group Groupama in the merger control proceedings surrounding its €1.25 billion acquisition of Italian insurance company Nuova Tirrena, joins Siragusa in the Italy section. The “truly outstanding” Dirk Schroeder remains “one of the best in Germany” and is joined there by the “excellent” Romina Polley. François Brunet in Paris brings Cleary Gottlieb’s contingent in the competition chapter to a close. The array of talent at the firm’s disposal led one admiring source to note: “All of these attorneys are wonderful!”

INTERNATIONAL BANKING AND CAPITAL MARKETS
The firm’s capital markets practice is, according to our findings, another strong area, with a total of 12 nominees in the chapter (two more than last year). Recent highlights for the group include representing the underwriters in VMware’s IPO, the largest in the technology sector since Google went public in 2004. Four of the firm’s nominees practise at the New York office where Leslie Silverman leads in terms of recommendations. Silverman represents both issuers and underwriters on the domestic and international capital markets and was variously described as “excellent”, “outstanding” and a “stand-out practitioner”. In June 2007 Silverman counselled Deutsche Bank Securities as underwriter in a US$75 million SEC-registered convertible note offering by NovaMed. On the other side of the Atlantic, Sebastian Sperber remains one of London’s most respected practitioners. Sources noted Sperber’s excellent reputation for US securities-related work. Laurent Legein joined the Brussels office in late 2006 and comes recommended as a “super all-round corporate lawyer”. Legein advised BC Partners in the second largest LBO of 2007, its €750 million acquisition of Bureau Van Dijk Electronic Publishing. Pierre-Yves Chabert affords the firm a presence in our France listing while Christof von Dryander in Frankfurt was praised by one prominent corporate contact as “brilliant, deal-experienced, up-to-date, relaxed also in difficult negotiations, [and a] very good negotiator”. Jinduk Han in Hong Kong gives the firm an important presence in the Asian markets.
Cleary Gottlieb also puts in a strong performance on the banking front with eight entries in the chapter. Highlights from the past 12 months include representing the Bank of America in its $2 billion investment in non-voting convertible preferred stock of Countrywide Financial Corporation. Robert Tortoriello and Lee Buchheit in New York remain in our breakdown of the practice area’s stars. Tortoriello’s work on regulatory and compliance issues and financial institution mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and restructurings was brought to our attention and he is acting as counsel to Bank of America on the regulatory matters surrounding the spin-off of its private equity division to an independent partnership and the acquisition of a minority interest in the investment manager. Buchheit has worked on sovereign debt restructuring on behalf of the Iraqi government among other matters. Fellow partner Paul Glotzer’s clients include Citibank and Citigroup and he and Seth Grosshandler complete what is a strong quartet in the Big Apple. John Murphy Jr in DC is regarded by some as “just about the finest regulatory lawyer in the whole United States” and his CV includes counselling People’s United Financial on its US$1.9 billion acquisition of Chittenden Corporation. Frankfurt’s Christof von Dryander appears once again in this chapter and Scott Senecal and Roberto Casati feature in the Russia and Italy sections respectively.

Last year Casati counselled the Albanian-American Enterprise Fund in its sale of 80 per cent of the shares of one of Albania’s leading banking institutions, American Bank of Albania, to Sanpaolo IMI (now Intesa Sanpaolo).

CORPORATE CREDENTIALS
The corporate chapters of our publication provide another opportunity for the firm to shine. Towards the end of last year lawyers from the mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures group worked on the largest ever leveraged buyout when they represented TPG and KKR in their $50 billion acquisition of TXU Corp. Victor Lewkow features prominently in our corporate governance findings where Daniel Sternberg joins him in New York. Lewkow co-chairs Tulane’s Corporate Law Institute and also comes highly recommended for his M&A expertise. Highlights include representing SAB Miller in its proposed joint venture with Molson Coors Brewing Company. Four further partners make the grade in our merger & acquisition research, all of whom (Legein, Meyers, Chabert and Casati) feature in other chapters in the publication. The “very good and personable” Michael Gerstenzang appears prominently in the New York section of the private funds chapter. His fund formation and investment work for TPG, Citigroup and Credit Suisse was consistently brought to our attention.

Cleary Gottlieb also boasts a high-profile international corporate tax practice. Leslie Samuels in New York leads the group in terms of nominations and brings excellent government credentials to the table, having served as assistant secretary for tax policy of the US Treasury in 1993. Towards the end of last year Samuels counselled Warburg Pincus in its US$4.5 billion acquisition of Bausch & Lomb. James Peaslee and Yaron Reich also appear in the New York section. Peaslee counselled American Tower Corporation in its US$1.7 billion commercial-backed securities offering. Reich’s work as counsel to Veolia Environnement in the US$788 million acquisition by its subsidiary, Veolia Energy North America, of all the capital stock of Therman North America from an affiliate of Sowood funds is one of a number of high-profile deals completed in the past 12 months.  “First-class” James Duncan’s inclusion gives the firm a presence in London while “top-tier” Pascal Coudin and the “outstanding” Gilles Entraygues performed well in our French research.

Evan Davis features in the commercial litigation chapter with respondents to our survey labelling him “exceptional”. Recent clients include Bank of America, Barclay’s Bank and Citigroup to name but a few. The New York office is also home to Steven Horowitz. Horowitz features in the real estate chapter and was recommended by one source as “one of the smartest lawyers in the United States”. He counselled the major equity investor in the joint venture acquisition of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in New York’s Time Warner Center. Jean-Pierre Vignaud in Paris appears in the oil and gas chapter and brings the firm’s impressive listing to a close.