Herbert Smith Freehills has advised Yahoo! JAPAN on its joint venture with global travel search engine Skyscanner Ltd to expand both companies' penetration of the lucrative Japanese travel search market.

Skyscanner attracts over 40 million users every month and will share its search engine technology with Yahoo! JAPAN, in turn gaining access to Yahoo! JAPAN's audience – which currently attracts over 80 million daily users, generating some 60 billion pages views per month.

Olswang has advised Australia’s privately-owned food and beverage business Airport Retail Enterprises (ARE) on its first concession in the UK market: partnering with The Zetter Group and award-winning chef Bruno Loubet to adapt one of London’s hottest vegetable-led dining concepts to launch Grain Store Café & Bar at Gatwick Airport.

Baker & McKenzie advised Crédit Agricole and its subsidiary Silca in charge of the IT services of the group, as part of the creation of a joint company with Capgemini, one of the world leaders in consulting, IT services and outsourcing.

The joint venture, operated by Capgemini, aims to provide computer services dedicated to SILCA and other entities of Crédit Agricole Group.

King and Wood Mallesons advises AA plc ("AA") on its strategic relationship with the Bank of Ireland UK (”BOI UK”) to provide a range of retail financial services to UK consumers.

Eversheds  has advised Bank of Ireland UK plc (“BOI UK”) on a new long term financial services partnership in the UK with AA plc (“AA”).

The partnership will bring together attractive customer propositions across a product portfolio of credit cards, unsecured personal loans, savings and mortgages. It will combine BOI UK’s proven product development capabilities with the strength of the AA brand and assets and its extensive and attractive membership base.

Wolf Theiss is advising listed Italian energy company ERG and Russian oil major Lukoil on the complex separation of LUKERG Renew, an Austrian-based 50-50 joint venture between ERG Renew and LUKOIL created in 2011 with a view to investing in the wind sector throughout the CEE region.

Clifford Chance has advised Ascott, the wholly owned serviced residence business unit of CapitaLand Limited, on its US$600 million 50:50 joint venture with the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) to set up a serviced residence fund, with an initial focus on the Asia Pacific and Europe regions.

Lead partner Valerie Kong said, "We are delighted to have advised Ascott on this significant joint venture with QIA, and it further demonstrates the increasingly global focus of many Singapore headquartered companies like Ascott Group."

Clifford Chance advised the German-based Dietz Group on entering into a joint venture with KWASA Europe S.à r.l., the European investment company of the Malaysian government's EPF fund.

The joint venture company, KWASA Dietz Germany GmbH, plans to invest equity up to EUR 500 million in logistics and industrial properties in Germany and neighbouring countries over the next three years.

Baker & McKenzie advised the Malaysian Employees Provident Fund (EPF) on a joint venture with the Dietz Group as well as the acquisition of an initial portfolio of German logistics and industrial real estate from Dietz Group.

The newly formed joint venture will operate under the name KWASA Dietz Germany GmbH and intends to invest EUR 500mn in equity in logistics and industrial real estate over the next three years.

Clifford Chance has advised Banco Santander on its joint venture agreement to launch a fintech venture builder later this year with Monitise plc.

The 50:50 joint venture will operate from London and will be aimed at investing in fintech businesses which will benefit from partnership with the largest bank in the euro zone by market capitalisation and with a world leader in mobile money technology.