Last year may have been a year defined by volatility on Hong Kong’s capital markets and unforeseen challenges, but it also marked many exciting developments for the SAR’s legal services market of which the flurry of dim sum bond issuances and history-making initial public offerings are only two.

To celebrate the achievements of the legal profession over the past 12 months, nearly 450 of the Hong Kong legal community’s finest gathered at the 2011The Macallan ALB Hong Kong Law Awards on Friday, September 9.

The highly-anticipated event, which is now in its tenth year, saw Mayer Brown JSM walk away with the most trophies— winning four awards including the highly-coveted Employment Law Firm of the Year, insolvency and Restructuring Law Firm of the Year, Insurance Law Firm of the Year, and Real Estate Law Firm of the Year.

Two in-house teams, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, were next in the honour roll taking home three awards each. Citigroup snapped-up three awards: two for its role on deals and one for its in-house team which was judged as the Banking and Financial Services In-House Team of the Year. Morgan Stanley, on the other hand, won the Investment Bank In-House Team of the Year and also took home an award for its advisory work for AIA’s IPO— the Equity Market Deal of the Year— and the Samsung Life IPO, which was the Korean Deal of the Year.

The highly sought-after Hong Kong Law Firm of the Year award went to Linklaters; while the honour as the best Hong Kong office of PRC firm was won by PRC heavyweight King & Wood.

The gala also marked the excellence of individuals: Freshfields’ Robert Ashworth was named as Managing Partner of the Year, while his colleague Teresa Ko was crowned as the inaugural Hong Kong Dealmaker of the Year. In addition, Christine Wong, general counsel of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange was singled out as the best Hong Kong In-House Lawyer of the Year.

Deal-wise, the top transaction in the deal market went to McDonald’s Corporation’s RMB29 million bond offering, which was advised on by Clearly Gottlieb, Deacons and Simmons & Simmons and the legal team of Standard Chartered. The trendsetting offering marked the first foreign company issuing yuan bonds in the city.

Meanwhile, the Shanghai Disneyland Project— a deal that took an unprecedented ten years to close— took out the M&A Deal of the Year award. Baker & McKenzie; Paul, Weiss and Chinese law firm Zhong Lun, were all awarded for their roles on the transaction.

To see a full list of the winners please click here