Clifford Chance Paris hit for six as partner arrives

Clifford Chance's Paris office has bagged an acquisition finance partner from White & Case, but six lawyers resigned from the firm in the same week.

Thierry Arachtingi is set to join the magic circle firm in early December, but in the meantime Hogan & Hartson has taken competition partner Michel Debroux and Salans has poached a five-lawyer banking team.

Debroux moved to the US firm on 17 November after nearly four years at Clifford Chance. He joined from Herbert Smith in February 2002 along with competition star Claude Lazarus, who remains at the firm.

Salans announced the hire of a five-lawyer banking team from Clifford Chance's Paris office. Of counsel Frédéric Gros and Philippe Max joined Salans as partners, along with three other lawyers.

Clifford Chance Paris managing partner Yves Wehrli said of Debroux: "Michel has made a great contribution to the development of our competition practice. We have had a lot of discussions together over the past months and we both concluded that it was time for him to take a new challenge at another firm." Wehrli added that the departures to Salans were amicable.

Debroux is Hogan & Hartson's first Paris-based competition partner. The firm has partners working in this area in Brussels, Berlin and Caracas, as well as its US offices.

Arachtingi has been a partner at White & Case for five years, and has spent time in the firm's London office as well as in Paris.

Wehrli said: "Having Thierry Arachtingi on board will give us extra capacity in a booming section of the market. It's a really great move because clearly with the quality of our private equity practice, our private equity clients wanted to have an acquisition finance team. Now we're confident that we have more capacity."

Arachtingi's practice includes acquisition and project finance, acting primarily for commercial and investment banks.