Beiten Burkhardt has hired former Hogan & Hartson partner Uwe Steininger in a boost for the German independent's Munich office.

The private equity heavyweight will join Beiten 1 July, having parted company with Hogan at the end of last month.

Steininger, who is the former co-head of SJ Berwin in Germany, was previously based at Hogan's Munich arm. He left the firm alongside corporate partner Jochen Schaefer, who has joined local sports law boutique Duvinage & Partner.

Steininger joins Beiten at part of the M&A practice group with a brief to help develop the private equity and investment law team. The firm has around 15 M&A and tax lawyers in Munich.

Beiten Burhardt M&A co-head Thomas Sacher told Legal Week: "I have known [Steininger ] from the other side of the table since the late 1990s and have always been impressed with his experience and how he handles clients. When we heard he was going to leave Hogan & Hartson it was a natural thing to ask him to join Beiten Burkhardt."

He added: "Beiten Burkhardt may not be very well-known for its private equity practice [but] we have a couple of partners that specialise in the field. That in combination with Steininger's strong reputation led us to ask him to join. I am convinced that private equity deals will increase in the next years. They may be down at the moment but it will pick up."

Steininger resigned from SJ Berwin – where he also headed the funds practice – in late 2005 and joined Hogan in July 2006 to spearhead the German and European expansion of its private equity and alternative investments practice.

Steininger also had a stint with Baker & McKenzie in Germany between 1996 and 2000.

His arrival follows Beiten's loss last month of St Petersburg-based IT partner Victor Naumov to Salans, where he heads up the Russian intellectual property, IT and telecoms practice.

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