- Managing Partner: Mark Leddy
- Number of partners: 195
- Number of lawyers: Approximately 1,200
- Languages: Multilingual; the firm’s lawyers speak more than 50 different languages
A leading international law firm with 16 offices located in major financial centres around the world, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP has helped shape the globalisation of the legal profession for more than 60 years. The firm’s worldwide practice has a proven track record for innovation and providing work of the highest quality to meet the needs of its domestic and international clients. In recognition of the firm’s strong global practice, its effectiveness in dealing with the different business cultures of the countries in which it operates, and its success in multiple jurisdictions, Cleary Gottlieb received Chambers & Partners’ inaugural International Law Firm of the Year award. The firm is organised and operated as a single, integrated global partnership (rather than a US firm with a network of overseas offices), and employs approximately 1,200 lawyers from more than 50 countries and diverse backgrounds who are admitted to practice in numerous jurisdictions around the world.
Since the opening of the firm’s first European office in 1949, the legal staff has included European lawyers, most of whom have received a portion of their academic legal training in the United States and many of whom have worked as trainees in one of the firm’s US offices.
The firm was among the first international law firms to hire and promote non-US lawyers as equal partners around the world.
The firm’s clients include multinational corporations, international financial institutions, sovereign governments and their agencies, as well as domestic corporations and financial institutions in the countries where the firm’s offices are located.
Although each of the firm’s 16 offices has its own practice, the “one firm” approach to the practice of law offers clients in any office the ability to access the full resources of all of its offices and lawyers worldwide to the extent their matters so require.
Main Areas of Practice:Areas of PracticeAntitrust & Competition
Banking & Financial Institutions
Bankruptcy & Restructuring
Executive Compensation & ERISA
International Trade & Investment
Leveraged & Acquisition Finance
Litigation & Arbitration
Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures
Private Clients & Charitable Organisations
Project Finance & Infrastructure
Public International Law
Sovereign Governments & International Institutions
White-Collar Defence, Securities Enforcement & Internal Investigations
• Counsel to the Hellenic Republic (Greece) in connection with the largest ever bond exchange and the largest ever sovereign debt restructuring
• Counsel to Google on corporate, intellectual property, tax and antitrust aspects of its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility
• Counsel to HSBC,The Bank of New York Mellon,BNP Paribas and other financial institutions in investigations and litigations arising from the alleged fraud of Bernard L Madoff
• Counsel to Sony Corporation of America in the EU and international antitrust aspects of the $2.2 billion acquisition of EMI Music Publishing
• Counsel to the Republic of Argentina in numerous litigations brought in the United States, Austria, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Switzerland by bondholders affected by Argentina’s default with respect to approximately $100 billion in external indebtedness
• Counsel to Sichuan Hongda Group in its joint venture with Tanzania’s National Development Corporation to implement an integrated coal mine and power plant project and an integrated iron ore mine and steel mill project in Tanzania. The two projects represent the single largest investment venture in East Africa
• Counsel toUnited Technologies Corporation on the EU antitrust aspects of its $16.4 billion acquisition of the aircraft components manufacturer Goodrich
• Counsel to GlaxoSmithKline in its unsolicited tender offer to acquire Human Genome Sciences and the resulting negotiated acquisition for $3.6 billion on an equity basis
• Counsel to Felda Global Ventures Holdings Berhad (FGVH) and the selling shareholder, Federal Land Development Authority, in FGVH’s Ringgit Malaysia 9.9 billion ($3.2 billion) SEC-registered and Reg S/Rule 144A IPO
• Counsel to the Russian Federation in connection with the issuance of over $50 billion in Eurobonds, including its return to the international capital markets when it placed $5.5 billion of Eurobonds, its RUB 40 billion international bond offering and its $7 billion Reg S/Rule 144A senior unsecured bond offering
• Counsel to Sony in its acquisition of Ericsson’s 50% stake in Sony EricssonMobile Communications, making the mobile handset business a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony. As part of the transaction, Ericsson received consideration of EUR1.05 billion
• Counsel to Agilent Technologies. in its $2.2 billion acquisition of Danish cancer diagnostics company Dako from EQT, the Sweden-based private equity group
• Counsel to Dexia in its restructuring and dismantling plan, including the ?4 billion sale of Dexia Bank Belgium (DBB) to the Belgian State; the EUR730 million sale of Dexia BIL; the sale of Dexia’s 50% stake in RBCDIS, a joint venture with Royal Bank of Canada; as well as new sovereign guarantees. The firm is also counsel to the Belgian State and Société Fédérale de Participations et d’Investissement with respect to the US regulatory aspects of these transactions and DBB’s US investments and subsidiaries
• Counsel to TPG in its $900 million acquisition of Mey Içki Sanayi ve Ticaret, a Turkish spirits manufacturer, and in its subsequent £1.3 billion sale to Diageo plc
• Counsel to Aerostar Airport Holdings, a consortium comprising Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste (ASUR) and Highstar Capital, in the 40-year lease to operate the Luis Muñoz Marin International Airport (LMM) in San Juan, Puerto Rico.