The half-year report on mergers and acquisitions by M&A intelligence service mergermarket has highlighted how politics has trumped economic conditions.  "An uncertain environment in 2016 caused by the UK's referendum on European Union membership and US elections are political upheavals that have negatively impacted mergers and acquisition activity," the report states in its introduction. A total of 1,591 deals worth US$307.4 billion were announced during H1 2016, which although representing a 29.7 per cent decrease by value compared to H1 2015, still reached the second highest H1 on Mergermarket record (since 2001). On the domestic front, Goldman Sachs headed the Australasian investment banking advisor league table, crowned the top legal advisors for Australasia with a deal value of US$14.919 billion, leaving mergermarket to take the stats out to three decimal places, with Macquarie group (US$14.916 billion) just a rounding error away. Macquarie Group advised on the most deals (14) in Australasia, equalled by Deloitte. The largest M&A deal announced for the APAC region in the half-year to 30 June 2016 was assessed by mergermaket as the US$9.4 billion bid for Asciano by a consortium headed by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.