_{"Roast! Roast! Roast!"}

Allen & Overy was mocked by O'Melveny & Myers for the mooted merger which failed to go ahead, as shown by photos that have emerged apparently from a partner conference at the US firm.

Allen & Overy and O'Melveny courted each other for some 18 months in 2018/2019 in an attempt to create a transatlantic beast, but a merger never materialised. Instead, A&O announced last year that it would combine with Shearman & Sterling, with that deal set to complete next month.  

When the A&O and O'Melveny merger plans flopped in 2019, the US firm said at the time that both firms had "developed a great deal of mutual respect and expect to remain in close contact in the service of our shared clients".   

However, some O'Melveny partners seem to have quickly binned the memo about "mutual respect". Photos have appeared online, posted by someone purporting to be a former O'Melveny lawyer, which appear to show the US firm mercilessly extracting the piss out of A&O.

In the online blog, the anonymous author says that the US firm, at one of its "wild offsite partner meetings", was "ridiculing former Allen & Overy head Wim Dejonghe" and "making it seem like they rejected him when their merger collapsed." The author commented that the presentation was "tasteless" in its "mocking" of Dejonghe.  

Here are a couple of pictures of the firm apparently having a laugh at A&O's expense. One image shows a massive projected picture of Wim Dejonghe, portrayed as a dejected suitor, while another has O'Melveny's long-serving chair, Bradley Butwin, rejecting the courtship: 

_{As Americans, they could have at least photoshopped Wim giving a Boombox serenade}

"They also criticize British beer," the blog continues, which is perhaps equally as  unforgiveable, given that most American beer is fizzy, ersatz shite:

_{To paraphrase Monty Python, drinking American beer is like making love in a canoe: It's f*cking close to water.} 

In a joke, as poor as American beer, the presentation also alluded to A&O's new address being "No Movery Drive, Washington DC, 00000", which is apparently a play on "Overy":

_{How could the country that gave us Richard Pryor, also produce this?}

The author also states that other pictures show the firm "celebrating that they were the only firm to not settle the Oklahoma opioid litigation, denying victims compensation." So not only did the US firm ream A&O, but also apparently boasts about making money out of the opioid crisis: one of the worst public health disasters in the US, where thousands of Americans died. A conference with something for everyone.

O'Melveny & Myers did not respond to requests for comment. Allen & Overy declined to comment. 

• Credit to Jeffrey Rovner for apparently taking the photos of the partner's meeting (according to the links in the blog). However, the pictures have mysteriously been removed from the photographer's website.

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