Haarmanns doubles UK tax capability

German firm Haarmann Hemmelrath & Partner has hired a second tax partner for its growing London office.

Raymond Breden is joining Haarmanns' sole London private tax partner, Peter Vaines.

He comes from Pfizer (formerly Warner-Lambert) where he specialised in corporate tax. He has experience in pan-European joint venture and corporate structure work and has acted for clients in Eastern Europe.

At Haarmanns he will be devising tax structures for multinational companies.

London corporate partner Philip Newhouse says: "We do a lot of Anglo-German work. German companies want to buy publicly quoted companies in the UK but they want to pay by issuing shares. For this we need a corporate tax partner."

He says that the firm will take on another tax partner in the next few months. Haarmanns is one of the top-rated firms in Germany for its tax-driven transaction practice.