Skadden

Lawyers 1,662
Turnover Not disclosed
Offices 22

Skadden advised the British petrol forecourts business EG Group on the sale of a majority of its business in the UK & Ireland to Asda for £2.27 billion. The billionaire Issa brothers who own the supermarket chain had sought the deal so that they could create a sprawling group with 581 supermarkets, 700 petrol forecourts and more than 100 convenience stores.

The firm also won a significant Supreme Court appeal for their client, the French paper company Sequana, which was being sued for a £117 million dividend that it received from a company, AWA, that went insolvent. One of AWA’s creditors sought the money back, arguing that its directors had paid the dividend without considering the creditors’ interests. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that AWA’s directors were not, at the time, under a duty to consider the interests of creditors. The case was the first occasion on which the Supreme Court considered the scope of the so-called “creditor duty”.