Former Biddle chief quits after losing out in merger

Pinsent Curtis Biddle's celebrated corporate partner Martin Winter has snubbed the newly-merged firm for Taylor Joynson Garrett.

Winter was senior partner at Biddle, which merged with Pinsent Curtis in January, but is not a member of the management committee at the merged firm.

He will leave this Wednesday (2 May) under short notice period agreements made at the time of the merger, but his departure is believed not to have come as any great surprise to his colleagues.

It is understood that Winter played a minimal role in the negotiations leading up to the merger. Although he sat on the strategy committee, which initially looked at the merger plans, the final decisions were left to Martin Lane, Biddle's former managing partner, now London managing partner, and Christopher Mullen, head of pensions at Biddle and at the merged firm.

A Pinsents statement states: "Martin supported the merger and the strategic thinking behind it, but felt at this stage of his career he wished to try pastures new."

Winter has 16 years experience of advising institutional and corporate clients in private equity transactions, and now hopes to capitalise on Taylor Joynson's intellectual property expertise.

Winter says: "Taylor Joynson's corporate practice, with its thriving private equity group, is a natural fit with the work I do. There isn't a personal sense of pique. I had a significant number of opportunities, but it's a question of doing something very exciting, not a question of anything else."

Winter was at Biddle from 1984 and was appointed a partner a year later, having previously spent five years at Norton Rose.