Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe and Taylor Wessing have boosted their European practices with Clifford Chance (CC) partner hires.

Orrick's French base, Orrick Rambaud Martel, has added former CC Paris partner Diane de Mouy as a partner in its finance team. Her practice focuses on infrastructure finance, asset finance and debt restructuring.

She becomes the eighth partner in Orrick's Paris finance team, which also has four of counsel and 15 associates. At CC, De Mouy was one of three dedicated acquisition finance partners in the Paris office, which has 200 lawyers including 29 partners following her departure.

Commenting on the move to Orrick, she said: "I was won over by the Paris office's growth strategy and, in particular, the strength of the project finance group."

Meanwhile, Taylor Wessing has re-hired Duesseldorf-based M&A partner duo Klaus Grossmann and Gustaf-Rudolf Schlieper. The pair had been with CC since 1997 when they switched from Wessing, the legacy German arm of the Anglo-German law firm.

Taylor Wessing management board member Ernst-Albrecht von Beauvais and corporate practice head Peter Hellich said jointly: "Their decision to join us contributes to the dynamic growth of our corporate practice and proves that our structures and service profile are attractive to top partners of magic circle firms."

Other recent departures from CC's continental European practice include that of Spanish senior partner Jaime de San Roman, who last week announced that he has joined Spanish independent – and Slaughter and May ally – Uria Menendez.