Chinese firm Gaopeng & Partners has hired a Microsoft in-house lawyer as a senior partner in Beijing.

Ron Xie was most recently a Beijing-based general manager and assistant general counsel for Microsoft Corp.'s global sales group, responsible for litigation and antitrust. Microsoft is among the multinationals that are currently under investigations by the Chinese government for antimonopoly law violations. Chinese state regulators such as Ministry of Commerce, National Development and Reform Commission and the Administration for Industry and Commerce have intensified antitrust enforcement in the past two years.

At Gaopeng, Xie will advise on compliance, investigations and disputes related to antitrust, intellectual property and anticorruption matters. Before joining Microsoft in 2011, Xie was a senior partner at Beijing-based Long An Law Firm and Beijing Youren Law Firm. Prior to becoming a private practitioner in 2000, Xie worked as a director for nine years at the legal department of China's Ministry of Commerce and its predecessor Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation.