Alston & Bird and Kirkland & Ellis were the top mergers and acquisitions (M&A) legal advisers in the global oil and gas sector for 2020 by value and volume, respectively. Alston & Bird advised on seven deals worth US$55.4bn, which was the highest value among all the advisers. Meanwhile, Kirkland & Ellis led in volume terms having advised on 47 deals worth US$24.3bn. A total 1,680 M&A deals were announced in the sector during 2020, marking a 15.5% decrease over the 1,987 deals announced in 2019, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

According to GlobalData’s report, ‘Global and Oil & Gas M&A Report Legal Adviser League Tables 2020’, deal value decreased by 33% from US$412bn in 2019 to US$276bn in 2020.

Aurojyoti Bose, Lead Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Kirkland & Ellis was the only firm that managed to advise on more than 40 deals, but lost the top spot by value to Alston & Bird due to its lack of involvement in big ticket deals.

“Meanwhile, Alston & Bird advised on more than one-tenth of the deals advised by Kirkland & Ellis but some of those were big-ticket deals. Alston & Bird managed to advise on four billion-dollar deals worth greater than or equal to US$1bn that also include three mega deals (deal valued more than or equal to US$10bn). On the other hand, Kirkland & Ellis advised on five billion-dollar deals but lacked any mega deal.”

Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz occupied the second position in GlobalData’s ranking of legal advisers for M&As in the global oil and gas sector by value with three deals worth US$35.7bn, followed by Vinson & Elkins with 27 deals worth US$35bn and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett with four deals worth US$30.1bn.

Vinson & Elkins occupied the second position by volume, followed by Baker Botts with 25 deals worth US$6.6bn and Gibson Dunn & Crutcher with 24 deals worth US$21.5bn.