Nabarro's European alliance gains Spanish member after two year hiatus

23 January 2012 | By James Swift, Joanne Harris

The alliance, which comprises Nabarro in the UK, August & Debouzy in France, GSK Stockmann + Kollegen in Germany and Nunziante Magrone in Italy, will now have more than 960 lawyers in 23 offices across nine jurisdictions.

The addition of Roca Junyent also gifts the alliance a Shanghai Office.

Nabarro’s alliance has been lacking a Spanish partner since 2009, when Rodes y Sala quit the group and merged with Gomez-Acebo & Pombo (30 June 2009).

Michael Hales, chair of Nabarro’s international committee and European group, said: “Since then we’ve been looking to replace them with another law firm in Spain, simply because Spain is such an important economy. It plainly makes sense to have a Spanish member and emotionally for us we wanted to replace something which we’d lost.”

According to Hales, the alliance had enquiries from a number of Spanish firms keen to fill the gap left by the departure of Rodes y Sala, but also conducted its own study of the market. In the end, the group felt most comfortable with Roca Junyent, with whom Nabarro had worked on deals for some time.

Roca Junyent’s Shanghai office was also an important draw. It extends the alliance’s coverage in Asia, which had so far been limited to Singapore.

Roca Junyent was established in 1996, and has 66 partners working from offices in Barcelona, Madrid, Palma de Mallorca, Lleida, Girona and Shanghai. The firm acts for multinationals and SMEs.