Cravath Swaine & Moore and CMS were the top mergers and acquisitions (M&A) legal advisers in Europe for Q1 2021 by value and volume, respectively. Cravath Swaine & Moore advised on eight deals worth US$55.4bn, which was the highest value among all the advisers. Meanwhile, CMS led in volume terms having advised on 64 deals worth US$4.4bn. A total of 2,760 M&A deals were announced in the region during Q1 2021, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

According to GlobalData’s report, ‘Global and Europe M&A Report Legal Adviser League Tables Q1 2021’, deal value increased by 6.1% from US$230bn in Q1 2020 to US$244bn in Q1 2021 in the region.

Aurojyoti Bose, Lead Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “CMS was the only adviser that managed to advise on more than 50 deals during Q1 2021, outpacing its peers by a great margin in terms of volume. However, it lagged behind in terms of deal value due to involvement in low-value transactions and did not even feature among the top 10 advisors by value.

“Meanwhile, Cravath Swaine & Moore, which advised on just eight deals, managed to top the list by value due to its involvement in big ticket deals. While the average deal size of transactions advised by Cravath Swaine & Moore stood at US$6.9bn, it was just US$69m for CMS.”

Blake Cassels & Graydon occupied the second position in terms of value with four deals worth US$38.7bn, followed by McCann FitzGerald with two deals worth US$32.4bn and NautaDutilh with seven deals worth US$32bn.

Allen & Overy occupied the second position by volume with 34 deals worth US$6bn, followed by White & Case with 31 deals worth US$19.8bn and DLA Piper with 31 deals worth US$2.6bn.