Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer‘s corporate group is set to widen its focus away from its traditional Anglo-German model as former Paris corporate head Gavin Darlington takes up one of the global leadership roles.
In a rejig of the department, Frankfurt partner Andreas
Fabritius also replaces Düsseldorf partner Axel Epe as the German head of the global corporate group. Epe is now widely expected to stand for the role of joint senior partner.
A Freshfields insider said: “The first job that needed to be done after the merger was integration. Now that integration has been done we can afford to be more outward looking.”
Predictably, Frankfurt partners dominate the new global positions, taking up the key political roles in corporate, finance, litigation and intellectual property (IP).
Equally predictably, there was no vote for the positions. After soundings, partners were nominated and then affirmed with a minimum two-thirds majority.
The full global leadership posts are: competition will be run by Frank Montag and Deirdre Trapp; corporate by Gavin Darlington and Andreas Fabritius; dispute resolution by Joanne Rickard and Rolf Trittmann; employment by Klaus Stefan Hohen-statt and Jocelyn Mitchell; finance by Simon Hall and Dirk Schmalenbach; IP/IT by Peter Chrocziel and Avril Martindale; real estate by Johannes Conradi and Geoff Le Pard; and tax by Roger Berner and Stephan Eilers.