Norton Rose has secured two partner hires for its City headquarters – strengthening its corporate finance and dispute resolution practices.

Former Allen & Overy (A&O) corporate partner Ian Lopez is set to join the top 10 City firm's corporate practice next month and will sit within the firm's communications, media and technology team.

Lopez's practice covers public and private M&A and equity capital markets work for telecom and technology clients, with a particular focus on corporate re-domiciliation work.

Major transactions Lopez has handled include advising United Business Media when it redomiciled to Ireland from the UK and advising Nasdaq on its £2.7bn hostile bid for the London Stock Exchange in 2006.

Norton Rose communications head Mike Rebeiro said: "Ian brings with him great experience working with FTSE 250 clients, a fantastic redomiciliation practice and we think he is a top hire. He will add strength [to our practice] which we are building and expanding."

Separately, Norton Rose is boosting its dispute resolution team with the hire of Eversheds construction and infrastructure litigation partner Donald Warnock for its City disputes practice.

Warnock, who specialises in contentious and non-contentious construction matters with a focus on transport infrastructure, will join the firm's global dispute resolution team, which has 30 partners. He is currently on secondment to Tube Lines as a counsel.

His hire is part of a wider strategy by Norton Rose to grow its disputes practice globally. The firm recently recruited a seven-lawyer team from Barlow Lyde & Gilbert in Hong Kong, including Asia disputes head Camille Jojo.