Last Friday the Southeast Asian legal community convened at The Fullerton Hotel in Singapore for the ALB Southeast Asia Law Awards 2011. Now in its 8th year, the awards present a unique opportunity to acknowledge the achievements of the previous twelve months: the market-transforming deals, the top lawyers and the top firms.

Clifford Chance, White & Case, Norton Rose, Mochtar Karuwin Komar, Hadiputranto, Hadinoto & Partners, Wiriadinata & Saleh and Baker & McKenzie have advised on a US$1.2bn multi-sourced Shari’a compliant Islamic financing deal – the largest cross-border private sector Islamic financing into Indonesia to date.

Herbert Smith, Ashurst, White & Case and Trowers & Hamlins have all played a role in advising on the world’s largest power project financing thus far this year – Abu Dhabi’s US$1.5bn Shuweihat 3 independent power plant (IPP) project. According the Herbert Smith’s lead partner on the deal, Andrew Newberry, the project is a landmark partnership between Japanese and Korean investors in a Middle East energy financing project.

Vinson & Elkin has joined the wave of international firms launching new offices in the Middle East as it opens an office in Riyadh, following similar announcements by Baker & McKenzie in May, Gates & Partners in April and McGrigors in March to set up offices in the region. These are in addition to Covington & Burlington’s Middle East dual office push in Riyadh and King Abdullah’s Economic City in January 2011.

A new regulatory-focused practice group has been inaugurated by Singapore Big Four Firm Rajah & Tann – the first such group dedicated to compliance to be launched in Singapore.

UAE law firm Hadef & Partners has grown its Abu Dhabi and Dubai offices by 10 new additions – a move that the firm says is in response to growing client requirements for specialist UAE law advice. Practice areas slated for growth include banking & finance, corporate, dispute resolution, government regulation and employment.

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett is the latest in a long line of elite US firms to undergo localisation following the moves of other Hong Kong-based US firms – most recently Davis Polk and Latham & Watkins which underwent the same process in 2010.

US firm K&L Gates has quintupled its Tokyo headcount from the same time last year, as ten lawyers from Clifford Chance – the largest group of Japanese lawyers to move en masse between international players in Tokyo – joins the firm.

Despite the current social and political commotion in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region, Baker & McKenzie has launch an office in Doha, Qatar – the capital that registered the highest GDP growth globally in 2010.

Mayer Brown JSM has promoted Ben Sandstad to its partnership with additional responsibilities of heading the firm’s structured finance practice in Asia.