Nominated for the Baltics Legal Advisor Award 2022 by Mergermarket

Our M&A and Corporate team has been shortlisted for the Mergermarket M&A Awards 2022 – Europe.

Nominations are based on Mergermarket league table analysis – the top firms by volume, top by value, plus the highest-ranking local adviser(s) for the country categories make the cut.

Our work tells our story better than any words, as we have participated in the top 3 deals in the market.

• In January we ended a decade-long shareholders’ conflict with a buyout within the largest retail and pharmacies chain group of companies.

The deal involved 10 separate shareholdings in more than 5 jurisdictions with more than a few ongoing court and arbitration cases in damages exceeding hundreds of millions (record-breaking fine imposed on the natural person in Lithuania). On top of that, closing involved more than 30 group representatives and required our team to memorise every detail of the process plan and assign specific minutes of the day for each signatory to sign their documents. Several other law firms failed in the past to resolve this dispute through successful M&A transaction.

• In June we completed the largest known exit from a Lithuanian start-up company by its founders in a 90 million EUR deal – the sale of 100% of shares of Mailerlite to Vercom.

The deal was motivated by the founders’ dispute, which had open court cases and interim measures applied to the shares. In parallel to the shareholders’ dispute, the majority shareholder engaged the sale of the whole company to the Polish-listed company Vercom. We had to settle the founders’ dispute before the majority dealt with Vercom and our team coordinated two significant processes simultaneously which depended on each other.

• The year is highlighted by an acquisition of a private commercial bank in Lithuania – Medicinos Bankas.

Textbook regulatory transaction – merger clearance, European Central Bank clearance, Bank of Lithuania clearance, and national security clearance. Our team provided added value in tough negotiations on commercial issues and keeping the client’s interests alive with public institutions.