Global law firm Ashurst Perkins Coie has won Innovation in Digital Tools for Legal Work at the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Awards Europe 2026. The award recognises the firm's work on Project Catalyst, a generative AI-powered regulatory analysis initiative that helped a major global bank navigate the regulatory landscape for launching a digital bank in the EU.
The FT Innovative Lawyers Europe awards celebrate the most innovative legal work from law firms and in-house legal teams operating across the region.
Bradley Rice, financial regulatory partner and co-lead partner on the project said:
"We're really proud Project Catalyst has been recognised by the Financial Times. This project was the perfect example of the power of partnerships with our clients and seeing the opportunity for AI to transform the delivery of legal services to help a key client achieve its strategic ambitions. This was a truly collaborative effort, bringing together subject matter expert lawyers, our leading AI specialists, and our Advance delivery team to achieve something in a timeframe and budget that simply would not have been possible through a traditional manual review. I'm incredibly proud of the team and grateful to our client for their trust and collaboration throughout."
Hilary Goodier, Global Head of New Law and Consulting, added:
"This award underscores our commitment to combining advanced technology with deep legal expertise to deliver commercially incisive solutions for our clients and highlights the exceptional talent we have across the firm. We are particularly proud that this recognition follows our recent success at the FT Innovative Lawyers Asia-Pacific Awards 2026, where we won Innovation in Strategic Direction for our AI commercial advisory group. Together, these awards reflect the firm-wide momentum behind our innovation strategy and our determination to be at the forefront of reshaping legal service delivery."
Ashurst Perkins Coie received further recognition across the FT Innovative Lawyers Europe 2026 report. The firm was commended in the Practice of Law rankings for AI, digital regulation and technology, for its use of an AI database combining two legal-AI platforms to review and recalculate risk on 1,000 loans for a multinational bank within six months to meet a 12-month EU regulatory deadline. The firm was also recognised in the Business of Law rankings for its Transition Plan Accelerator, a tool that assesses the credibility of clients' climate sustainability policies.
