International law firm Ashurst has been named Law Firm of the Year at the Legal Business Awards, held on 8 February at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London. The firm was also named Private Equity Team of the Year and Competition Team of the Year (in conjunction with Jones Day and Lovells).

The firm won Law Firm of the Year, in recognition of the "clear blue water between itself and rivals" with increases in profitability, paying "huge dividends." The judges also commented that "with the firm's European focus yielding a Stockholm launch last month, Ashurst is on the up."

The private equity award was an acknowledgment of Ashurst's mandate to advise a private equity consortium, led by Netcare Healthcare Holdings and Apax, on the £2.3 billion acquisition of General Healthcare Group, one of the "most brutal private equity auctions in recent years."

Ashurst's competition practice was named Team of the Year with Jones Day and Lovells for advising The Royal Bank of Scotland, MasterCard International and MasterCard UK members Forum on the appeal against the OFT's ruling on MasterCard's interchange fee arrangements in "one of the most important competition cases of 2006."

The firm was short listed for seven awards in total, the others being:

- European Firm of the Year, for Paris. The judges singled out the "impressive year" for the Paris office which "proved itself a force to be reckoned with in the private equity market, winning an enviable number of instructions."