Watson Farley & Williams (“WFW”) is delighted to announce that its Global Aviation Restructuring Index (“GARI”) has been celebrated as a ‘Standout’ in the ‘Digital Legal Services’ category at the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Europe 2022 awards.
Launched in October 2021, GARI is WFW’s online interactive legal analytics tool which offers a comparative index of over 55 restructuring procedures available in 30 key aviation jurisdictions. Freely available to all aviation sector participants, GARI assigns debtor and creditor ‘friendliness’ scores to complex restructuring procedures to make high-level comparisons easy to digest. In January 2022, in response to positive feedback, WFW added four new jurisdictions to GARI to further enhance its use worldwide.
The FT Innovative Lawyers Europe are a celebration of the best in innovation from law firms and in-house legal teams across Europe, highlighting innovation in areas including sustainability, diversity and digital transformation. In determining the winning case studies, each nominee was given scores for originality, leadership and impact with GARI scoring 6, 8 and 8 points respectively.
Global Aviation Sector Co-Head Jim Bell commented: “I am thrilled that GARI has been recognised and rewarded for its innovation and impact on the aviation sector at the FT Innovative Lawyers Europe Awards. The impact GARI has had on the industry in the last twelve months is immense and being named a standout innovation is testament to the hard-work and expertise of all those involved in creating and developing the tool”.
Aviation Partner Dominic Pearson, editor of the index, added: “It is wonderful to see the success of GARI be celebrated throughout the industry. On the back of recently being highly commended at the Legal Business Awards, this is yet further evidence that GARI is the leading analytical tool for restructuring in the aviation industry. We look forward to taking GARI to further heights and continuing its well-deserved success”.
