Kirkland & Ellis and Slaughter and May slipped down the European M&A rankings in the first half of 2020, according to data from Mergermarket which shows the extent of the coronavirus pandemic's impact on dealmaking activity.

Kirkland & Ellis, which held the top spot for European M&A values in the first half of 2019, took eighth position this year, having advised on 41 deals worth $49.5 billion.

Meanwhile Slaughter and May did not appear as one of the top 20 legal advisers for European M&A values in H1 2020. For the same period in 2019, the firm came third in the rankings behind Kirkland and Davis Polk & Wardwell.

Kirkland and Slaughter and May did not provide a comment in time for publication.

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer topped the tables for European deal values having advised on 51 deals with a total value of $102.4 billion. It was the only firm to have surpassed the $100 billion value mark, putting it ahead of rival Latham & Watkins which advised on 72 European deals valued at $73.1 billion.

Filling out the rest of the top five spots were Allen & Overy, which has leapfrogged up the tables from 22nd place last year; Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton; and Herbert Smith Freehills, which again rose significantly through the rankings up from 34th in 2019 to take 5th this year.

The news comes amid a depressed period of dealmaking caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, with a raft of M&A deals having fallen through due to uncertainty in the global markets.

Global M&A deal values plummeted by more than 50% during the first half of 2020 compared with the same period last year, down from $1.9 trillion in H1 2019 to $901.6 billion. Deal volumes, meanwhile, dropped by almost a third year-on-year, from over 10,000 to just under 7,000.

European deal values fell 31% in the first half of 2020 compared with the same period last year, while volumes fell by 37%.

Freshfields London transactional practice head Julian Pritchard said: "We have seen a shift in the balance of deal activity as COVID-19 has moved across the world, and perhaps bucking the trend, significant cross border deal flow and strong activity from our U.S.-based clients.

"Looking forward, we expect financial sponsor investment will continue through the cycle, particularly now clients can put some parameters around the impact of COVID-19 on businesses."

"We can see a lot of post-summer sale processes in the planning phase and expect activity will now increase, both in affected and unaffected sectors, the former driven by necessity and the latter driven by opportunity. We expect tech and life sciences to remain active sectors."

Farah O'Brien, corporate partner in Latham & Watkins' London office, commented: "We're already seeing a pick-up in the pipeline of deal activity across our practice, particularly on the private equity side. Looking ahead, we're hopeful this will translate to a busy Q3 and Q4 for M&A activity.

"There are still a number of businesses that were ready to be sold before lockdown, which have traded well throughout the period, and investors looking to find creative ways to deploy capital."

In April, data from Mergermarket showed that the coronavirus pandemic had contributed to making it the worst month for U.K. M&A dealmaking since 1985, with the total value of U.K. M&A dropping by 99%.

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