Watson Farley & Williams raids Lovells for Spanish launch
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Watson Farley & Williams (WFW) has launched in Spain through recruiting a five-lawyer team from Lovells with a particular focus on renewables.
Project finance partner Joaquín Sales and energy counsel Maria Pilar Garcia both join the Madrid start-up as partners, bringing with them three associates.
The office marks entry into a ninth jurisdiction for WFW and is part of what the firm refers to as a pan-European focus on renewables energy tying in expertise in Spain, France, Italy and Greece.
“We’ve been building a European renewable business for the last few years,” commented the firm’s managing partner Michael Greville. “We identified a gap in the Spanish market about 18 months ago and wanted to position ourselves [to take advantage of it].”
The Spanish government recently decided to reduce the subsidy to certain renewable projects, which has led some lawyers to claim it will become a commercially unviable sector to operate in (25 May 2009). However, Greville argued that this presented new opportunities.
“We think there’s plenty of work around. Renewables is not dead. The [changes to the] tariff is creating an all-change, as clients move out new ones move in.”
Lovells Madrid managing partner Jose Maria Balana said that his office is left with two partners in the energy, infrastructure and project finance sector, but said the firm may look at recruiting to replace the departing lawyers.
“In order to reinforce this practice group we may be envisaging recruiting further,” he said. “We will miss Joaquín personally, we think it’s a very courageous venture and he goes with our best wishes.”
Readers' comments (5)
Anonymous | 11-Nov-2009 11:44 am
This is no doubt the start of many similar announcements involving Lovells partners as the firm prepares to be taken over by Hogan.
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Anonymous | 11-Nov-2009 12:15 pm
Anon above demonstrates shocking ignorance of a partner recruitment processes since it normally takes a couple of months to go through the interviewing and nomination process to bring in a lateral. Especially when setting up a new office. So we can safely assume that Sales was out the door long before the Lovehog talks were known, let alone what the potential terms of any merger might look like.
As Sherlock Holmes might have said, just because you hear a dog barking and then see a dog it is very foolish to assume the same dog was responsible for both.
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Anonymous | 11-Nov-2009 12:47 pm
Anons above do not take into account the well known internal problems of the particular Lovells office raided; it is not going to be the sole departure on the coming times
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Anonymous | 11-Nov-2009 2:34 pm
It's certainly going to be easier for firms who want to pick off partners to look at Lovells at the moment as the premerger period is always the most nervewracking.
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Anonymous | 11-Nov-2009 4:45 pm
Wouldn't the average partner have the nous to look at what the deal really means for them rather than walking out of the door in a strop?
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