Mayer Brown scoops ex-Hammonds team for Brussels

Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw has become the first firm to pounce upon Hammonds’ departing Brussels partners, hiring trade specialist Edward Borovikov and a team of six associates.

Borovikov and fellow Hammonds partner José Rivas resigned from Hammonds in the summer along with the firm’s Brussels head Konstantinos Adamantopoulos.

In November it emerged that negotiations to keep the trio at the firm had failed, with only Adamantopoulos agreeing to stay at Hammonds.

Borovikov becomes the fifth partner in Mayer Brown’s Brussels office. His six-strong team is a considerable boost to the firm’s offering, particularly with regard to Russian and World Trade Organisation (WTO) work.

Mayer Brown’s global trade head Peter Scher said Borovikov’s hire was an acknowledgement of the need for Russian expertise, particularly in light of Russian’s impending membership of the WTO in 2007.

Borovikov’s hire follows a period of expansion for Mayer Brown in Brussels. In October 2005 the firm appointed three lawyers from Coudert Brothers, including trade partner Paulette Vander Schueren.

Regulatory specialist Jean-Philippe Montfort also brought two other lawyers with him when he joined the firm in March 2006 from US firm Keller & Heckman.