Simpson Thacher & Bartlett is advising Alibaba Group Holding on its $1.5 billion acquisition of Chinese digital mapping and navigation firm AutoNavi Holdings, which turned to Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom for legal advice.

The deal, expected to close in the third quarter, would help Alibaba increase revenue by integrating AutoNavi’s technology and data on location of establishments into maps, allowing customers to access peer review of shops and restaurants and pay for goods before arriving at a shop.

Skadden is U.S. legal adviser to AutoNavi, while a Kirkland & Ellis team led by Hong Kong partners David Zhang, Jesse Sheley and Stephanie Tang is providing U.S. advice to the digital mapping firm’s independent committee. Jun He Law Offices and Travers Thorp Alberga are advising the independent committee on PRC and Cayman Islands law, respectively.

Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson is acting as U.S. legal adviser to Lazard, the independent committee’s financial adviser.

Simpson Thacher is lead counsel for Alibaba, while Fangda Partners and Maples and Calder are advising the e-commerce firm on PRC and Cayman Islands law, respectively.

AutoNavi was the leading mobile map service by the number of users with 31.3 percent share of the market, as of the third quarter of 2013, according to Beijing-based Analysys. Baidu Inc followed with 26.6 percent.

AutoNavi provides map software for Samsung Electronics Co’s smartphones as well as to China Mobile and Google Inc.

Alibaba, which owns 28 percent of AutoNavi, offered to buy the company in February to better compete with rivals Tencent Holdings and Baidu, as China’s biggest internet firms continue to chase growth by buying online businesses.

Alibaba, valued at around $140 billion, is expected to go public later this year in the United States in the largest IPO since Facebook Inc's debut in 2012.