Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton is advising Iceland's government in its negotiations with the creditors of the country's largest banks to ease capital controls in place six years ago.

The Cleary team advising Iceland is being led by New York partner Lee Buchheit, a sovereign debt specialist with a track record of working with distressed countries. London partner Andrew Shutter and New York partner James Bromley are also acting for the government.

Following the 2008 banking crisis, three Icelandic banks – Kaupthing, Landsbanki and Glitnir – folded with total debts worth $85bn (£50bn). 

The government placed restrictions on capital movements into and out of the country to avoid a rapid sell off of assets by foreign creditors, and administrators are still in control of an estimated Ikr2.8tn (£14bn) of bank assets.

It now wants to roll back capital restrictions to encourage more foreign investments into the country.

In 2012, Buchheit led a team of around 20 Cleary lawyers advising the Greek state on a €130bn (£109bn) bailout package. He also led Cleary's New York team on Greece's €10bn (£8.1bn) bond buyback scheme the same year,

In 2010, Cleary Gottlieb assisted Iceland in its negotiations with the United Kingdom and the Netherlands regarding disputes over Icesave, an online savings bank run by Landsbanki which collapsed in 2008 resulting in a bail-out for 230,000 UK depositors.