Asia round-up: DLA, White & Case and O'Melveny secure senior lawyers
The former head of the tax practice at leading Chinese law firm King & Wood has joined DLA Piper in Hong Kong, writes the Am Law Daily. Stephen Nelson joined King & Wood's Shanghai office four years ago from Baker & McKenzie, where he had practised for 20 years. Nelson is bucking a recent trend that has seen a number of veteran Western lawyers in China jump from international firms to local ones. He said he hopes to have a broader practice at DLA Piper, focusing on foreign investment into China as well as tax matters.
January 25, 2011 at 06:54 AM
2 minute read
The former head of the tax practice at leading Chinese law firm King & Wood has joined DLA Piper in Hong Kong, writes the Am Law Daily.
Stephen Nelson joined King & Wood's Shanghai office four years ago from Baker & McKenzie, where he had practised for 20 years.
Nelson is bucking a recent trend that has seen a number of veteran Western lawyers in China jump from international firms to local ones. He said he hopes to have a broader practice at DLA Piper, focusing on foreign investment into China as well as tax matters.
Meanwhile, White & Case has recruited to its Singapore office the former head of Hogan Lovells' local banking and finance practice. Ken Hawkes specialises in project finance, focusing on the oil and gas industries as well as telecommunications. Art Scavone, the New York-based global head of the firm's project finance practice, said that the firm is responding to a recent upswing in Asian project finance.
Elsewhere, O'Melveny & Myers has added a capital markets partner in Beijing. Ke Geng was previously an associate with Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, where he started as a first-year in 2003. Geng recently worked on the $233m (£145m) New York Stock Exchange initial public offering of Youku.com, a Chinese online video company.
Though it has one of the largest presences in China among international firms, O'Melveny has not previously had a native mainland Chinese capital markets partner. Demand for such partners has grown as Chinese companies, particularly state-owned enterprises, have led the global initial public offering market in recent years.
Howard Chao, O'Melveny's Asia practice chair, said that Geng's cultural fit and local market knowledge will help accelerate the growth of the US law firm's capital markets practice in the region. "This will probably be the busiest year ever for China capital markets," he added.
The Am Law Daily is a US affiliate title of Legal Week.
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