Move of the week
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer global managing partner Ted Burke is leaving the firm to become general counsel and COO of Boston private equity firm Arclight Capital Partners. Burke will step down from the role in Q1 2014 and is the longest-serving managing partner Freshfields has had, having been first elected to the role in 2005.
UK
London
IP firm Powell Gilbert has appointed two solicitors. Adam Gamsa joins from Field Fisher Waterhouse, where his experience has included work on major patent disputes in the pharmaceutical sector, anti-counterfeiting campaigns involving customs seizures and advising on data protection issues. Dennis Waller joins from Hogan Lovells, having gained wide-ranging experience in patent litigation. In particular, he has been involved in major multi-jurisdictional actions in the pharmaceutical and telecoms industries.
Reed Smith has added Jonathan Solomon to its partnership. He will join the firm’s energy and natural resources group and joins from Dentons, where he was a partner. He represents and advises financial institutions, corporates and traders on all forms of structured trade, commodity and infrastructure financings including pre-export, pre-payment, limited recourse, warehouse and counter-trade as well as rights purchase and true sale structures.
Davenport Lyons has added partner Colin Sawdy to its IP team. He comes from Edwards Wildman Palmer and specialises in trade marks, design and copyright, and contentious and non-contentious IP, and has previously acted for clients in the electronics, finance and leisure industries. He is fluent in Japanese and is admitted to the State Bar of Illinois.
Pinsent Masons has appointed Manoj Vaghela as partner and Chamika Hand as legal director in its insurance group. Both Vaghela and Head join from Clyde & Co. Vaghela is a contentious insurance lawyer and prominent in insurance arbitration and international arbitration generally. He specialises in Bermuda Form policy disputes and has acted as lead English lawyer on more than a dozen such disputes since 2002 on behalf of major international insurers. Head has a growing practice in financial lines claims disputes and also specialises in Bermuda Form arbitrations.
Wales
Hugh James has appointed Robert Phillips head of property litigation. He joins as a senior associate from Eversheds, where he was also a senior associate, and brings a wealth of property dispute experience across a broad range of sectors. In the past nine years he has advised some of the UK’s largest energy providers on their property portfolios, with a particular specialism in property disputes involving renewable energy projects. Phillips has also worked with numerous educational institutions, providing advice on freehold land portfolios and student accommodation.
Europe
King & Spalding has made its sixth partner hire in Paris with the hire of Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) partner Mehdi Haroun, formerly head of the firm’s North Africa practice. Haroun joins the US firm along with four other lawyers including HSF partner Philippe Trosset, who joins as a counsel. King & Spalding has also recently recruited an associate from French firm Darrois Villey Maillot Brochier to join the team. The team’s experience covers all areas of energy law as well as telecoms, and Haroun brings significant North African expertise, in Algeria, Libya and Morocco in particular.
Stephenson Harwood has picked up Norton Rose Fulbright French litigation partner Barthélemy Cousin in a boost for its growing contentious team in Paris. Cousin joins a year after the firm pledged to grow its contentious capability in France. He brings with him three associates, one from Norton
Rose Fulbright. Cousin’s experience is primarily in banking and finance litigation, particularly banking-related fraud work.
Field Fisher Waterhouse (FFW) has strengthened its Paris IP team with the hire of Winston & Strawn partner Nathalie Hadjadj-Cazier. Hadjadj-Cazier began work at FFW at the start of September. She specialises in the registration and defence of IP rights, with a particular focus on contentious work in a broad range of sectors. She spent six years at Winston & Strawn, having joined the firm from DS Avocats in 2007.
Mayer Brown Paris litigation partners Renaud Semerdjian and Christophe Ayela are leaving to launch a litigation boutique with white-collar crime specialists Francis Szpiner and Caroline Toby. The boutique will be
known as Szpiner Toby Ayela Semerdjian and be dedicated to complex litigation and risk management. Semerdjian and Ayela joined Mayer Brown four years ago from their own firm, while Szpiner and Toby have practised together as a boutique for several years.
Pinsent Masons has appointed Peter Rosher as partner in its construction arbitration team in Paris. Rosher joins from Clifford Chance, where he was a counsel in the firm’s international arbitration group. He will focus on arbitration in the infrastructure and energy and natural resources sectors.
Damien Conem is joining Liedekerke as corporate partner. He was a senior counsel at Loyens & Loeff prior to joining Liedekerke and has joined with two associates from his team, Fanny Guilbert and Raphael Piront.
US
In Washington DC Arnold & Porter has appointed Peter Levitas, a former senior official in the Bureau of Competition of the Federal Trade Commission,
as partner in its antitrust group. Levitas has experience of complex merger and conduct investigations, particularly those affecting the healthcare, pharmaceutical, and technology sectors.
Former federal prosecutor Richard Hamilton has joined Ulmer & Berne in Cleveland to chair its white-collar crime group. Hamilton has spent the bulk of his 20-years-plus legal career as a trial attorney with the US Department of Justice’s antitrust division and, most recently, with the US attorney’s office for the Northern District of Ohio as a trial attorney. He has led complex white-collar crime investigations and prosecutions.
Offshore
Appleby has hired Dylan Wiltermuth as an associate, specialising in M&A and capital markets. Prior to joining Appleby, Wiltermuth was an associate with Kirkland & Ellis in its London office, where he specialised in the field of corporate finance.
