Mishcon branches out into competition law with double partner hire

DLA Piper partner Andrij Jurkiw left to join Mishcon a month ago while Crowell & Moring partner Rob Murray moved to the firm the week beginning 4 March. The pair will also be joined next week by DLA Piper associate Sarah Houghton, who had been at the firm since 2008.

Mishcon’s head of litigation Kas Nouroozi said the hires were part of his firm’s plan to widen its litigation offering. In addition to building a competition practice, Mishcon is also looking to shore up its arbitration and regulatory practices.

“We wanted to give it a bit more spread,” said Nouroozi, “and we decided that to make our offering more complete we needed to bolster a few areas – one of which was competition.”

Nouroozi went on to say that the new competition practice would fit snugly with and complement Mishcon’s existing business advising clients on investigations and fraud work. He also said that the firm was also looking to hire competition partners in New York.

New partners Jurkiw and Murray will both join Mishcon as partners in London. Before joining DLA Piper in 2008, Jurkiw was a partner at Burges Salmon. He mainly advises clients on the defence side of contentious competition matters.

Murray specialises in advising claimants that have been hurt by the actions of dominant competitors. He joined Crowell & Moring in 2009 from US firm Cohen Milstein Hausfeld & Toll, where he helped launch a London office and was its managing partner.

In a statement, Mishcon’s managing partner Kevin Gold said: “Expanding our offering to include competition law has been on the cards for some time – we were just waiting for the right team, which we have now found in Andrij, Rob and Sarah. An exciting new area for Mishcon, competition law expertise is increasingly required by our domestic and international clients and we are pleased to be able to offer a comprehensive service on both the defence and claimant sides.”