National firm DLA Piper swooshed past rivals to win the Midlands Corporate Ski Challenge this year, with Nick Jew, Craig Armstrong and Nicky Randle beating 50 or so challengers to take the prize in the first year the firm entered the competition.

The event has run for several years in Villars, Switzerland, so the victorious DLA team should really have been on the piste on Mt Blanc, sipping their après-ski to the backdrop of stunning views all the way down to Lake Geneva. But sadly, in these chilly economic times, the event was moved this year to the considerably less glamorous Tamworth Snowdome. Still, it’s the winning that counts, made even better by having beaten rival law firms including Freeth Cartwright, Harvey Ingram, HBJ Gateley Wareing and Mills & Reeve.

Far be it from Obiter to downplay the winners’ achievement, but we do have a sneaky suspicion that the standard of skiing may not have been quite up to that of our continental friends. Event organiser Tim Clay of Birmingham’s Clay Rogers & Partners says: ‘Most made it down the slope fairly well, and there was only one faller of note as James Dyson from HBJ Gateley Wareing crashed after just two metres.’ Could he be the event’s very own Eddie the Eagle? On the plus side, there is a clear sign that the economy really is starting to hot up – The Ski Challenge is moving back to the Alps next year.