Morrison Foerster Awarded Deal of the Year at the LexisNexis Legal Awards 2024

Morrison Foerster was awarded Deal of the Year by LexisNexis at its annual Legal Awards. MoFo was awarded the 2024 Deal of the Year for advising Imerys, the French-listed world leader in mineral‑based specialty solutions, on its joint venture with British Lithium to accelerate development of the UK’s largest lithium deposit. Deals are recognized for their unusual levels of complexity, high value, and innovation in the legal profession.

The MoFo team advising Imerys was led by corporate partner Gary Brown, with support from partner Jennifer Buckby and associate James Dabell. The team also included Marie-Claire Strawbridge and Julia Kotamaki (National Security); Alistair Maughan and Sana Ashcroft (IP); Sana Ashcroft (IP); Sophie Allen (Tax); Oliver Spratt, Lara King and Dan Alam (Employment and Data Privacy). Partner Simon Trahair-Davies and associate Sam Dunstan of Stephens Scown advised Imerys on real estate matters. Imerys acquired an 80 percent stake in the joint venture, with British Lithium holding the remaining 20 percent stake. The joint venture will result in the UK’s first integrated producer of battery-grade lithium carbonate—with production targets that could supply 500,000 electric cars per year and fulfill two-thirds of Britain’s anticipated battery demand by 2030. The Cornwall-based British Lithium will combine its advanced lithium carbonate‑producing technology with Imerys’ world-leading mining expertise to produce battery‑grade lithium carbonate from local granite. The joint venture, supported by national agency Innovate UK and the Automotive Transformation Fund, will see Cornwall become the leading lithium hub in the UK and play a key role in the transition to sustainable energy.

In addition to being awarded Deal of the Year for its role advising Imerys, MoFo’s corporate group was also shortlisted in the same category in this year’s awards for advising Arm Holdings plc (“Arm”) in connection with Arm’s IPO, the largest IPO globally in 2023. The global MoFo deal team advising Arm on its IPO was led in London by corporate partners Gary Brown and Stuart Alford; with the global team also being led by Washington, D.C., partner and chair of the firm’s capital markets practice, Justin Salon; Austin capital markets partner John Hensley; New York capital markets partner John Owen; Tokyo office managing partner Ken Siegel, and capital markets partner Jesse Gillespie; and partners Marcia Ellis and Andrew Meyer for China-related matters.

MoFo’s London corporate team has been consistently recognized by LexisNexis for leading market-shaping deals, having previously been awarded Deal of the Year in 2022 for advising SoftBank on the proposed $40 billion sale of Arm to NVIDIA. The group was shortlisted in the Deal of the Year category in 2023 for advising Cambridge Quantum Computing on its merger with Honeywell Quantum Solutions to create the world’s leading integrated quantum computing company.

Morrison Foerster was also shortlisted for the Pro Bono Award at the 2024 LexisNexis Legal Awards, while partner Trevor James was shortlisted in the Award for Diversity and Inclusion category. A team, led by associate Harriet Slater and partner Hayley Ichilcik, was shortlisted in the Pro Bono Award category for their role assisting APPEAL, a UK charity and law practice dedicated to fighting miscarriages of justice, in overturning Andrew Malkinson’s life sentence. Meanwhile, Trevor James, a partner on Morrison Foerster’s global tax team, was shortlisted in the Award for Diversity and Inclusion category in recognition of his career-long commitment to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. Trevor is the chair of the firm’s London Diversity Committee, a longstanding member of the firm’s global Diversity Strategy Committee, a founding mentor of the Black Solicitors Network (“BSN”) Creating Pathways Mentoring Programme and sits on the board of the BSN City Group.

View the full list of award winners.