Shearman & Sterling

Shearman & Sterling LLP

Headquarters	599 Lexington Avenue, New York City, United States
No. of offices	18
No. of attorneys	850
Major practice areas	General practice
Key people	Creighton Condon (senior partner)
Revenue	US$820.5 million (2013)
Profit per equity partner	US$1.8 million (2013)
Date founded	1873 (New York City)
Company type	Limited liability partnership
Website	www.shearman.com

Shearman & Sterling LLP is a multinational law firm headquartered in New York City, United States. It is organized as a single, integrated partnership with approximately 850 lawyers in many of the commercial centers of the world. The firm's lawyers practice US, English, EU, French, German, Italian and Hong Kong law.

Shearman & Sterling was founded in New York City in 1873 and is considered a part of the group of elite American "white shoe" law firms.

History

Wall Street origins

Shearman & Sterling was founded in 1873 by Thomas Shearman and John William Sterling, who concentrated on litigation and transactional matters respectively. The young firm represented financier Jay Gould and industrialist Henry Ford, and cultivated a number of important business ties that would evolve into long-standing client relationships, such as with the Rockefeller family and the predecessor banks to Citigroup and Deutsche Bank.

Postwar global expansion

The firm experienced international expansion in the post-World War II era under the direction of Boykin C. Wright, a senior partner who joined the firm from Cahill Gordon & Reindel with a group of lawyers, briefly leading the firm to add his name to the letterhead. The firm's first international office was established in Paris in 1963.

In postwar Germany, Shearman & Sterling helped German companies such as Siemens and BASF restructure their debts and re-emerge as credible exporters to the United States. The firm's lawyers assisted Daimler in its listing on the New York Stock Exchange in 1993, the first such listing by a German company, prompting other major companies to follow suit. The firm then represented the German automaker in its purchase and subsequent sale of Chrysler.

The firm is well known for its ability to compete in key legal markets, particularly in Germany where its mergers and acquisitions practice is preeminent and in the United Kingdom, where it fields one of the largest London offices of a non-UK law firm.

Elsewhere, the firm played an important role in the establishment of state-owned oil and gas companies, including Sonatrach in Algeria and throughout the Middle East. In 1979, Shearman & Sterling lawyers represented Citibank during the intense negotiations that ensued during the Iranian Hostage Crisis, after the US government froze all Iranian assets in US banks.

Shearman & Sterling has been involved in Latin America for decades. The firm's lawyers helped restructure the debts of many Latin American nations in the 1980s in the Brady transactions. It also won mandates in the privatization of numerous state-owned entities. In 2004, the firm launched an office in São Paulo, Brazil and has since represented Brazilian companies in a number of important transactions.

In East Asia, Shearman & Sterling was one of the first firms to grasp the future strategic importance of the Asia-Pacific region, establishing offices in Hong Kong in 1978, followed by Beijing, Singapore and Shanghai.

Recognition

Shearman & Sterling has attained recognition in a number of legal publications and industry rankings for its work in the United States and internationally across a range of practices areas, including: dispute resolution/litigation, international arbitration, project finance, public international law, capital markets, and mergers and acquisitions.

Pro Bono

Shearman & Sterling has an active pro bono practice. Globally, the firm is pro bono counsel to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania. Shearman routinely assists the ICTR through seconding one lawyer there per month to work on particular projects. The firm also assists FINCA International, the pioneering microcredit and village banking non-profit organization. Other pro bono initiatives include asylum cases, Violence Against Women Act petitions, criminal appeals and art law representations.

Recent notable mandates

Americas

• Advising long-time client Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited in its proposal to acquire BlackBerry Limited for $9 per share in cash, for an aggregate transaction value of approximately $4.7 billion.
• Obtained acquittal of Richard Bai, Director of Sales for Notebook LCD panels at AU Optronics of Taiwan, on criminal price-fixing charges after a three-week trial in the Northern District of California.
• Counseled Merrill Lynch in its sale to Bank of America for $50 billion.
• Advised the Dow Chemical Company in its $18 billion acquisition of specialty chemicals manufacturer Rohm & Haas, the subsequent restructuring of that deal and then the sale of Morton Salt.
• Represented the underwriters in the $8 billion IPO of Banco Santander's Brazilian subsidiary, the largest IPO of 2009.
• Representing GE in its acquisition of the aviation business of Avio S.p.A., an Italian manufacturer of aviation propulsion components and systems for civil and military aircraft, for $4.3 billion.
• Acting as lead counsel to a consortium of 12 of the largest technology companies in the world, organized by Intellectual Ventures and RPX Corporation, in connection with the acquisition and licensing of Eastman Kodak Company’s digital imaging patent portfolio.

Asia

• Advised on the $11.5 billion cross-border financing for Toyota.
• Advised on the approximately HK$3.88 billion primary listing on The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited and global offering of the H shares of the China Machinery Engineering Corporation.
• Represented underwriters Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, China International Capital Corporation and ICEA Capital Ltd. in connection with the $22 billion initial public offering and dual listing of Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and Shanghai Stock Exchange.
• Advised Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company in its acquisition of the Hummer brand from General Motors for an undisclosed sum. This deal never closed because China's government did not approve the transaction.
• US counsel to the underwriters in the $2.35 billion IPO of China Metallurgical Group Corporation in September 2009.

Europe

• Advised on the $605 million sale by ArcelorMittal of Skyline Steel and Astralloy Business to Nucor Corporation; the firm also achieved a significant litigation victory in favor of ArcelorMittal Stainless Belgium N.V
• Ongoing representation of shareholders of Yukos Oil Company in arbitration proceedings against the Russian Federation stemming from the bankruptcy and subsequent nationalization of the Yukos company. The compensation sought by the claimants exceeds $33 billion.
• Represented Société Générale in its €4.8 billion equity offering, the proceeds of which were used to repay the French state for its support during the financial crisis.
• US, Italian and German law counsel to UniCredit in its €4 billion rights issue in January 2010.

Middle East and Africa

• Advised on the financing for the Sadara Chemical Company, the joint venture between the firm's long-standing client Dow Chemical Company and Saudi Arabian Oil Company. Sadara closed a SAR 7.5 billion (approximately US$2 billion equivalent) sukuk in Saudi Arabia as part of the financing for the $20 billion Sadara integrated chemical project—the largest Saudi project finance sukuk ever issued.
• Advised on the $3.7 billion financing for the redevelopment of a refinery at Mostorod, near Cairo—the largest-ever project financing in Africa.
• Advised ADNOC in its US$10 billion joint venture with ConocoPhillips to develop the Shah gas field in the United Arab Emirates.
• Represented Qatar's sovereign wealth fund in its purchase of a significant stake in Volkswagen and Porsche for €7 billion.
• UK Counsel to Barrick Gold in its spin-off of its African mining assets and the subsequent £2.4 billion listing on the London Stock Exchange in February 2010.

Notable alumni

• Rohan S. Weerasinghe, former Senior Partner and presently General Counsel of Citigroup.
• Markus U. Diethelm, former international associate (1989–1992), and current general counsel of UBS AG.
• Philippe Dauman, former associate (1978–1987) and partner (1987–1993), and current CEO of Viacom.
• Clark T. Randt, Jr., formerly Shearman & Sterling's China Managing Partner, served as U.S. Ambassador to China from 2001-2009.
• Mario Mancuso, former Under Secretary of Commerce, senior Pentagon official and senior member of the administration of George W. Bush.
• Melody Barnes, former associate and former senior domestic policy adviser to President Barack Obama.
• Laurens Jan Brinkhorst, Dutch politician, minister and member of the European Parliament.
• Mitch Caplan, former associate (1984–1990) and current CEO of E-Trade.
• Joseph A. Doyle, former associate (1947–1956) and partner (1956–1979), Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Manpower and Reserve Affairs) in the Carter Administration.
• John McCarthy, former associate (1966–1967), and former Australian ambassador to various countries including Vietnam, Mexico, the United States and Japan.
• Bob Woodruff, former associate and ABC News journalist.
• Nina Zagat, co-founder and co-chair of the Zagat Survey, was associated with the firm from 1966-1990.

See also

• International arbitration

External links

• Official website