The Asia-Pacific league tables show Allens did 49 deals worth US$43,076m in 2011. The firm was followed closely by Freehills, which did 70 deals worth US$36,013m. In the previously year, Freehills ranked first in value of deals, and Allens ranked third. Mallesons Stephen Jaques, which last year ranked second, this year came in at number 13, with 52 deals worth US$14,955m.

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, Corrs Chambers Westgarth, Clayton Utz and Blake Dawson came third, fourth, fifth and sixth place respectively, by value. Corrs moved up from 25th in the previous year to fifth place in 2011.

Minter Ellison did the most M&A deals in 2011, according to the MergerMarket tables, with 75 deals worth US$13,430m. Freehills came in second by deal count, followed by Clayton Utz with 52 deals worth US$25,372m.

Allen & Overy, which was involved in three of the year's ten largest deals in the ASia-Pacific region and came in first in the legal sector adviser league table for Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) M&A by deal value, moved up from 23rd place to 9th place in the Australasian tables as well, with 27 deals worth US$24,831m.

After signs of recovery in the third quarter of 2011, M&A in the Asia Pacific, excluding Japan, reverted at the end of the year to the overall downward trend for the year seen across the globe, MergerMarket said in a statement.

The last quarter saw the announcement in the region of 452 deals worth US$ 69.4bn. Usually the busiest quarter of the year for M&A in the Asia-Pacific region, Q4 2011 saw the lowest Q4 total since 2005 (US$39.5bn), and showed a decrease of 31.6% in deal value compared to the previous quarter (US$ 101.5).

After seeing the highest total annual deal value for the region in 2010, the 2011 total was dragged down by the poor fourth quarter. With US$339.8bn-worth of deals, the total value of M&A in 2011 was 9.8 per cent below 2010’s total (US$ 376.9bn), though it was still the fourth busiest year on mergermarket record (since 2001).

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Activity went down in almost all the major countries in the region, with India seeing a 43.7% drop in deal value from US$51.8bn in 2010 to US$29.2bn in 2011, Malaysia seeing a 31.2 per cent drop from US$ 22.1bn to US$15.2bn, South Korea seeing a 9.5 per cent drop to US$36.3bn, and Australia seeing a 12.4 per cent drop to US$79.4bn. China was the notable exception with an increase of 9 per cent compared to 2010, from US$95.4bn to US$103.9bn.

Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) inbound cross-border deals added up to US$92.9bn in 2011, a 10.1 per cent increase compared to 2010 (US$84.4bn) and the highest level since 2007 (US$93.1bn). Outbound cross-border total deal value was US$115.2bn, an 18.3% increase since 2010 (US$97.4bn) and the highest total since 2007 (US$124.5bn).