Magic circle firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer continues to be ranked one of the top global law firms to advise on mergers and acquisitions as last year’s post-financial crisis M&A high continued into 2015.

The London-headquartered firm came fourth in Mergermarket’s league table of legal advisers ranked by deal value in the first quarter of 2015, jumping two places from Q1 2014.

In the quarter it worked on 37 deals with a total value of £77m.

Magic circle firms Linklaters (£57m) and Clifford Chance (£32m) also made the top 20. The top spot was taken by US firm Sullivan & Cromwell, which worked on 31 deals with a total value of $146.7m (£100m).

Freshfields led the European table for deal value (£42m). Linklaters (£28m), Clifford Chance (£20m) and Slaughter and May (£19.5m) also made the top five.

Deal values in Europe were slightly higher than Q1 2014, with M&A valued at £126bn.

The most valuable sector was telecommunications, with deals adding up to £29bn.

The UK’s M&A value was more than triple Q1 2014, with £51bn-worth of deals, reaching the highest quarterly value since Q4 2009. Over half of the activity came from bidders outside Europe with deals valued at £30bn.