Freehills CEO, Gavin Bell was named ALB Law Awards Managing Partner of the Year last night with the firm also winning awards for the Australian, New Zealand, Energy & Resources, Equity Capital Markets, and Project Finance Deals of the Year.
Freehills was nominated as a finalist across more deals and categories than any other law firm in Australasia in a clear recognition of its strength in a challenging year across the whole industry.
Along with Freehills’ partners Philippa Stone, Martin Shakinovsky, Tony Sparks, Shaun McGushin and clients, Mr Bell accepted his award at a gala black tie event in Sydney last night.
In being nominated, Mr Bell was described as leading the only large law firm that avoided legal redundancies while continuing to employ graduates maintain business and innovate.
The awards event, now in its sixth year, was held at the Westin Hotel in Sydney to celebrate the success and achievements of the Australian and New Zealand legal industry during 2009.
Freehills received 23 nominations across 10 categories. A judging panel comprising of in-house counsel examined the submissions made by each firm in conjunction with the information and research collected by the ALB research team. After carefully considering all aspects they rate each submission according to deal sizes, complexity, breadth and innovation, and from this the winners are decided.
ALB Law Awards 2010 winning deals:
- Managing Partner of the Year: Gavin Bell
- Energy & Resources Deal of the Year: OZ Minerals’ US$1.386 billion sale of mining interests to China Minmetals Non-Ferrous Metals Co.
- Australian Deal of the Year: Rio Tinto US$15.2 billion rights issue
- Equity Market Deal of the Year: Rio Tinto US$15.2 billion rights issue
- New Zealand Deal of the year: Fisher & Paykel recapitalisation
- Project finance Deal of the year: PNG LNG Project
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