Shearman & Sterling earned highest honors as the “Italian M&A Team of the Year” at the 2014 TopLegal Awards held in Milan on Nov. 27. The nomination panel noted that the Italian M&A team work on high-profile M&A transactions such as Allianz’s acquisition of Unipol’s non-life insurance assets.

TopLegal is a leading Italian trade publication, with wide distribution among law firms, corporations, banks and the finance community, covering the Italian legal market. The shortlist and the final award for each category were determined by TopLegal, together with a panel composed of general counsels of leading Italian companies, as well as professionals from the world of finance, business and communications, on the basis of deals completed and a survey with operators in the M&A industry (including banks and corporate clients).

“We are very appreciative of this important recognition by TopLegal,” said Domenico Fanuele, managing partner of the firm’s practice in Italy. “We have acted on some high-profile transactions in recent years, including the Allianz-Unipol deal, a number of acquisitions for Blackstone and the Dover Group and, of course, our representation of GE in its $4.3 billion acquisition of Avio’s aviation business. With our naming earlier this year by Legalcommunity as ‘Italian Debt Capital Markets Team of the Year,’ we are enjoying quite a bit of market recognition of all the efforts and achievements of our group of lawyers.”