The 1 January 2005 merger of Japanese heavyweight law firm Anderson Mori with capital markets firm Tomotsune & Kimura has already borne fruit at the inaugural ALB Deals of the Year Awards Japan 2005. The two firms combined collected a total of seven trophies at the awards - which were organised by Asian Legal Business magazine - just ahead of Linklaters on six and Mori Hamada & Matsumoto on five.

Traditionally considered the most international in outlook of the major Japanese .rms, Anderson Moris role as counsel to UK mobile operator Vodafone on its ¥319bn (US$3.1bn) public tender offer for minority shares it did not own in Vodafone Holdings KK, was largely responsible for Anderson Mori & Tomotsune reaching the top spot for work completed in 2004.

Working closely alongside lawyers from Linklaters and Vodafones in-house team , lead partner Osamu Hirakawa helped devise the unique and novel triple deal structure after many weeks of structuring attempts by banking and various other advisers.

Newly-merged firm Linklaters - which joined forces with leading Japanese lawyers Mitsuhiro Yasuda and Akihiro Wani (and their teams) in December 2004 before becoming a full merger as soon as the law allowed on 1 April 2005 - picked up International Deal Team of the Year for its work on the Vodafone-Japan take-private transaction.

The big US law firm winners were Wall Street heavyweights Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Sullivan & Cromwell.

Each firm landed four trophies, with the judging panel deciding Simpson Thacher resident head David Sneiders work on the INPEX privatisation, the Japan Telecom sale to Softbank Corporation, the Shinsei Bank IPO and the Elpida Memory Inc IPO, among others, warranted the title of International Dealmaker of the Year.

This came at the expense of Sullivan & Cromwell partners John Young Jr and Izumi Akai - although Sullivan was the only firm to have two partners short-listed for the individual categories.

Meanwhile, Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu partner Hidetaka Mihara pipped his rivals to take out Japanese Dealmaker of the Year, while Morgan Stanley and Nomura Securities picked up International and Japanese Investment Bank Teams of the Year respectively.

It was left to Atsumi & Partners Bonnie Dixon to sum up the evening: "We all enjoyed the evening very much and I hope that it does become a regular feature of the social season among lawyers and investment bankers in Tokyo."

*The work of Anderson Mori & Tomotsune has been recognised through the legacy firms of Anderson Mori and Tomotsune & Kimura