The Nomination Process

Qualifying Period

Deal activity between January 1, 2011, and February 28, 2012.

Notes on Nominations

1. Please state which deal and which category your nomination relates to. Ensure you give as much information as possible under the headings. The judges will decide on the shortlist for each category – such as Corporate Finance Team, or Law Firm of the Year – based on individual nominations. It is therefore important to include as much supporting information as you can under the relevant heading. Judges are not just looking at size of deal. They will take into account deal complexity, who led the deal, mix of advisers, whether cross-border, completed to tight timeframe, and a number of other criteria.
2. The deals must have been completed within the qualifying period (above).
3. The deal(s) must be geographically relevant to either the Thames Valley or Solent/South Central areas (please email linda@elcot.co.uk if you would like a map emailed to you). Either the target, acquirer, funder, law firm or adviser must be located in this region.
4. Multiple nominations by different firms in a deal are allowed – but judges will not necessarily give extra weight to the number of nominations. Third parties can nominate you too.
5. Additional material that you want to submit should be scanned and emailed in pdf format to linda@elcot.co.uk
6. Please clearly state where information is confidential. Any confidential information will be available to judges but not announced at the awards event or distributed to media.
7. If you have questions about what to include or exclude on the nomination form, please email David Murray at david@elcot.co.uk
8. Closing date for entries is March 5, 2012.
9. Judging will take place in March and all finalists will be notified by March 31, 2012.
10. Depending on the quality of entries, usually three/four finalists will be chosen per category.
11. No winners will be announced until the event itself on April 26, 2012.
12. The winners of Dealmaker and Deal categories will be chosen at the event by audience keypad voting.
13. The judges’ decision will be final, and no correspondence will be entered into. Sponsors cannot judge in the area in which they are commercially active and leave the room during this process.
14. Finally, remember these are deals awards. The judges look for deal-related nominations and excellence in specific deals – rather than whether a firm has, say, strength across all its disciplines.

A Word format version of the nomination form is available for download here.