Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz was the leading legal adviser globally for mergers and acquisitions in Q1-Q3 2019, according to GlobalData.

The American law firm advised on 57 deals worth $589.7bn (up 37.20% year-on-year) including the biggest transaction of the period: Bristol-Myers Squibb’s acquisition of Celgene for $89.5bn.

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Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz secured top position in GlobalData’s H1 2019 rankings, having advised on 36 deals worth $528.1bn.

GlobalData published the top 20 league table of legal advisers ranked according to the value of announced deals globally.

Kirkland & Ellis was second in the global league table for Q1-Q3 2019, with 440 transactions worth $481.5bn (up 85.88% year-on-year).

Nagarjun Sura, financial deals analyst at GlobalData, said: “With respect to deal value, only Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz was able to cross $500bn mark and topped the legal adviser league table, whereas Kirkland & Ellis settled in second position despite recording the largest volume at 440 deals.

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“Interestingly, the top seven advisers of the table worked either on Bristol-Myers Squibb’s acquisition of Celgene or United Technologies’ acquisition of Raytheon, the biggest transactions in 2019 so far.”

Sullivan & Cromwell was in third place having advised on 101 transactions worth $368.2bn (down 10.05% year-on-year) and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett took fourth place with 133 deals worth $331.2bn (down 0.95% year-on-year). With 89 deals worth $325.8bn (down 14.29% year-on-year) Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton took fifth position in the league table.

In terms of deal volume, Kirkland & Ellis topped the table with 440 deals, followed by Jones Day with 342 deals worth $187.1bn.

In the first three quarters of 2019 43,111 deals were recorded, marking a 29.06% increase from the first three quarters of 2018.

To ensure further robustness to the data, the company also seeks submissions from leading advisers, through adviser submission forms on GlobalData’s website.