Vinson & Elkins LLP has appointed Sami Al-Louzi as partner after enticing him to join the firm from White & Case, where he was a partner at the firm’s Riyadh office for six years. Al-Louzi’s practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, privatization and project finance, and has represented clients in the banking, private equity, capital markets, energy, and telecommunication sectors in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and elsewhere in the Middle East, and is a native Arabic speaker.

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Simmons & Simmons has replaced regional managing partner Paul Simpson with Tim Field. Field is a corporate practice partner at the firm’s Abu Dhabi branch and advised on the creation of Bear Stearns’ Middle East asset management, fixed income and investment banking operations. On the other hand, Simpson is a Dubai-based projects specialist. Continue reading… »

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Linklaters has promoted London-based partner Stuart Salt to managing partner of its Asia offices. This move comes in response to the current managing partner Zili Shao taking a position at JP Morgan, a firm client.

Salt is currently the head of the firm’s Europe, Middle East and North Africa (EMENA) operations, but he will step down in that office once a successor has been found.

He will move to the Hong Kong office to supervise the firm’s six offices in Asia comprised of 300 lawyers. Salt’s experience in the Middle East will be used to help direct the growth of the Asia region. “Cross-border activity between Asia and the EMENA region is now a major area of global investment and our clients are at the forefront of this,” said Salt.

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Minter Ellison has hired Wu Yi Yi, a partner at Shanghai-based Rolmax Law Office, to replace the position of chief representative of the Shanghai office left vacant by Wan Li’s move to DLA Piper.

“I hope to bring an international perspective to the firm’s work in this region. My focus will be to work closely with our offices in Hong Kong, Australasia and the UK to continue to raise the profile of our China practice,” Wu said.

Wu joined Minter Ellison in 2001 and started off at the Melbourne office, but was acting chief representative of the Shanghai branch in 2002. She specializes in M&A, foreign direct investment, corporate finance, and employment and real estate sectors.

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Shearman & Sterling will merge with Colin Law & Co, a new Hong Kong law practice launched in late December by former O’Melveny & Myers corporate lawyers Colin Law and Peter Chen. The merger will provide Shearman & Sterling’s Hong Kong with a strategic advantage, as it will gain Hong Kong law capability. Other firms which have gained Hong Kong law capability through strategic alliance was Weil Gotshal & Manges, when it formed an association with two former Simmons & Simmons lawyers in October last year.

Jones Day has reunited with former New York and Singapore partner Dennis Barsky, as he returns to the firm from leading a Singapore based hedge fund. Barsky, will rejoin the firm’s Singapore office as a Private Equity partner bringing his 15 years of corporate experience.

Jones Day has also named Manoj Bhargava as a Partner in the firm’s Singapore office. Bhargava practice includes IPOs, offerings and listings, as well as M&A and private equity transactions.

Reed Smith has named Michael Fosh as partner to its corporate & securities group in Beijing. Fosh joins the firm from Herbert Smith’s Beijing operation where he was the office’s chief representative, bringing to Reed Smith his renowned capital markets and corporate experience.

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Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP has appointed Guohua (Annie) Wu to corporate partner at their Beijing office. Wu is an expert in complex business transactions, particularly in and involving China. She is a Chinese native and has had legal training in both China and the United States, with licenses to practice in New York and Illinois. She passed the Chinese bar in 1995, but is not currently licensed to practice in the PRC.

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Ashurst has named Peter Kwon as partner in its securities and structured finance practice in Hong Kong. Prior to Ashurt, Kwon was at DLA Piper, where he was the head of its Asia financial markets practice. He has experience in advising on transactions all over Asia on various banking deals.

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London and U.S.-based firms with offices in Asia brought up partners - albeit at a slower pace than in 2008 - in a variety of practice areas in recent months, with corporate lawyers in Tokyo seeing the most movement.

In mid-October, Clifford Chance shocked the market with the promotion of 15 senior associates across Asia showing it’s commitment to the region.  According to Managing Partner Peter Charlton, despite a notoriously difficult year for firms across the board, the Magic Circle hopes to reward the hard work of its attorneys and retain and attract good talent. Continue reading… »

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White & Case LLP has promoted Simon Collins, a Tokyo-based lawyer, to partner in the Global Asset Finance Practice. He is an English-qualified lawyer and focuses on advising clients on a wide range of finance transactions, including project and asset finance, structured lending and leasing and commercial shipping transactions. Koichiro Ohashi, also a Tokyo-based lawyer, has been promoted to partner in the Global Capital Markets Practice. He is qualified in both Japan and New York and his work deals with advising clients on Japanese capital market regulations, as well as cross-border transactions. He also has extensive experience in the areas of securitizations, derivatives and mezzanine and equity financing. Continue reading… »

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Gide Loyrette Nouel has hired Phan Thi Lieu, a lawyer from Deloitte, as head of its Vietnam tax practice. In her eight years of tax work, Lieu has focused on establishing international tax planning schemes, conducting tax due diligence, restructuring enterprise and completing double tax treaty applications. At GLN, she will assist the firm’s corporate clients on business tax advisory and compliance issues. The firm took this move to assist foreign investors who are seeking specialist tax advice to determine the best structure for their investments

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The Royal Bank of Scotland has promoted Michael Loughney to general counsel for the Asia-Pacific region from his current position as the head of group legal for its global banking & markets. He will lead a 70 person team based throughout the region, but will continue to operate out of Hong Kong. Loughney will be replacing Tony Corcoran, who is said to be returning to Australia at the conclusion of this year.

He joined RBS in 1998 as head of legal and compliance for financial markets in New York. He moved to London in 2004 to serve as deputy to the head of global banking & markets legal, and also head of group legal, where he worked for the credit trading and distribution areas of the bank.

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Linklaters’ Asia managing partner Zili Shao will leave the firm at the end of January to become chairman and CEO of JP Morgan’s China businesses.  He has been Asia managing partner since May, when after an election he replaced Giles White.

Shao specializes in M&A and private equity investments, and in his new position he will have responsibility for all of the investment bank’s operations in China.

Managing partner Simon Davies commented: “While Zili’s departure will be a great loss to the firm, we respect and support his decision to take on this exciting challenge with one of the world’s leading financial services institutions. It is a testament to the leadership qualitites of Linklaters’ many talented individuals that enables one of our own to move into roles of this nature.”

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Winston & Strawn have expanded their Asia presence by opening up offices in Beijing and Shanghai.  Xiangyang Ge, head of Baker & McKenzie’s China regulatory team, will join Winston & Strawn to head both bases.  He will focus on foreign investment work as well as cross-border M&A.  The firm has started that it has further growth plans for its China branches.

Managing partner Thomas Fitzgerald said: “We expect to continue our strategic expansion on a global basis and in regions widely viewed as having the greatest growth opportunities for the firm as well as its corporate clientele. As the world market continues to rebound from last year’s downturn, we see Asia, and China particularly, continuing to play an increasingly important role.”

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Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe has recruited Phoebus Chu, formerly a partner at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP, to join as a partner in the firm’s Hong Kong and Beijing offices.  Chu has over 15 years of experience in China and Hong Kong cross-border corporate finance, capital markets, mergers and acquisitions, and public company matters, and will work with Orrick’s team of corporate and capital markets lawyers in Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai.

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Mallesons Stephen Jaques has appointed Neil Kaplan CBE, QC, SBS, who joined the firm November 5, 2009 as International Arbitration Adviser at its Hong Kong office, as leading arbitrator.  His distinguished career includes over 40 years worth of experience in dispute resolution, and during the past 14 years he has solely been an international arbitrator and is currently a council member of the International Committee for Commercial Arbitration and the Australian Centre for International Arbitration.  Throughout his career, Kaplan has held prestigious arbitration-related positions, such as President of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and Chairman of the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre.

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Allen & Overy has hired Mallesons Stephen Jaques’s litigation partner Simon Clarke to its Hong Kong office.  Clarke has 15 years of extensive experience in complex litigation andcontentious regulatory work in Asia which the firm is eager to use.  He also is knowledgeable about white-collar defense, which will be put to use assisting clients in regards to the risks of criminal sanctions that are occurring more frequently as regulators are cracking down.

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K&L Gates has hired Raja Bose, partner at Watson Farley & Williams, to lead its Asian arbitration practice.  Bose will be based in the firm’s Singapore office and will be charged with expanding the Asian arbitration practice.  Chairman Pete Kalis stated: “International arbitration is an important part of K&L Gate’s global strategy. There’s been a lot of expansion for us in arbitration in recent months.”

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U.S. and British firms are pushing further into the Asia market to build their Hong Kong practices, and a trend is developing as they move and hire partners there.

Following last summer’s grim news about attorney attrition at big firms, numerous international firms that have laid off employees domestically continue to hire in Asia. Much of this trend is limited to partner candidates particularly well suited to practice in Asia i.e. partners with Asia based clients or clients investing in the region or practice experience, regional language skills, etc. Associate jobs are following as those partners need support. The continued hiring in Asia appears to stem from the regulatory changes in the Asia markets making them more attractive to international investors and law firms alike as well as the interest of western law firms in these emerging markets to hedge their risk in this global recession. While more well established firms look to expand their platform and to build out their core strengths internationally by making opportunistic hires, newer offices are taking advantage of the turn in the market and increase in lateral partner movement to avoid the risk and expense of growing organically. In late February, Bloomberg reported that while firms in the US and UK are contracting, their China offices are expanding as “the country’s growing importance to clients makes it an essential location for global law firms, along with New York and London.”

Deregulation in both the US and certain Asian legal markets also accounts for the continued interest in partner level hires and growth in the region. The latest news comes from Korea, according to AmLaw. And according to ALB LegalNews, “expectations in Asia are finally on the rise…and savvy law firms are already looking ahead to 2010.” Hong Kong firms are now looking to join forces with other international firms in the area, according to ALB.

Certain practice areas seemed particularly attractive to Asia-bound partners: international arbitration, M&A, litigation, IP, private equity and projects/energy as firms seem increasingly interested in beefing up their Asia offices, expanding onshore and internally moving partners overseas. We have continued to see new offices opening up throughout 2009 with Latham & Watkins and Slaughter & May both very recently opening a second and third PRC office, respectively. However, the majority of law firm partner moves remain lateral hires from law firms and MNCs from within China.

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