If the Big Question panel of senior UK solicitors is right, Ashurst Morris Crisp and New York firm Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson still have a lot of work to do if their merger talks are to come to fruition. Seventy per cent of the 100-strong panel rated the chance of the talks succeeding at just 50-50.

The rest of the panel is equally divided between those who do, and those who do not think the talks will succeed.