Allen & Overy and Linklaters picked up the lion's share of more than £10m in legal fees from their roles on the proposed merger of insurance giants Aviva and Friends Life, documents released under the UK Takeover Code show.

Friends Life, who turned to Linklaters as lead advisers on the deal, paid out a total of £6m to its legal advisers, while Aviva, who chiefly instructed Allen & Overy (A&O), spent a total of £4.4m on legal costs.

However, the financial and corporate broking advisors involved in the deal, which included Goldman Sachs, Barclays and J.P. Morgan Cazenove, pocketed more than £40m between them – £26m from Friends Life and £18.8m from Aviva.

Friends Life's £36.1m in total fees and expenses also includes £1.0m for accounting advice and £400,000 for public relations advice.

As part of its total £32.4m in costs, Aviva spent £4.8m on accountants and £1.8m on public relations advice.

The A&O team on the £5.6bn deal, agreed in December, included corporate finance partner David Broadley and insurance partner Philip Jarvis, with corporate partner Richard Browne also having taken a role at an earlier stage.

Linklaters' team for Friends Life was led by corporate partner Matthew Bland, who also represented Friends Life on the £317m disposal of its Lombard business.

Global head of corporate Jeremy Parr and corporate insurance partner Victoria Sander also featured for Linklaters.