Linklaters notched up more than 33 million pounds in fees for its first six months of work advising on the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
A progress report from administrator PricewaterhouseCoopers has revealed that the law firm billed PwC 33.5 million pounds ($50.2 million) for advice given between September 2008 and March this year.
The figure equates to the firm billing almost 1.3 million pounds ($1.9 million) every week throughout the six-month period. PwC itself racked up fees of more than 77 million pounds ($115 million) over the six months, taking total legal and accounting costs to more than 100 million pounds ($150 million) so far.
Linklaters fielded a team of several hundred lawyers advising PwC on the bank’s collapse. Around 20 of the firm’s partners were involved, with restructuring chief Tony Bugg and banking partners David Ereira and Richard Holden leading.
The firm said in a statement: “This is the largest and most complicated bankruptcy in history, raising many novel legal issues. The demand for highly specialized, value-added legal advice has been immense, with a multi-jurisdictional, cross-practice team of more than 300 lawyers working around-the-clock on issues of unparalleled scale and complexity.”
Linklaters was one of several London firms landing roles in connection with the administration, with firms including Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Lovells also advising on U.K. aspects.
Freshfields advised the Bank of England, fielding a team under restructuring partner Nick Segal and financial services chief Michael Raffan.
Lovells, meanwhile, drafted in commercial litigation partner Christopher Grierson and restructuring partners Laurence Crowley and Alexander Wood to advise the Financial Services Authority, while Weil, Gotshal & Manges picked up the main role for the stricken bank in the U.S.
Details of Linklaters’ fees comes just a month after it emerged that Slaughter and May has billed more than 9 million pounds to date advising on the nationalization of Northern Rock.
A report by the National Audit Office showed that the firm had picked up 9.4 million pounds ($14 million) in fees since it was selected to advise the government in September 2007.
