Ashurst is set to open its second office in Italy, with the firm launching in Rome through the hire of a team of lawyers from Italian independent NCTM and US firm Dewey & LeBoeuf.

The City firm is bringing in two partners from NCTM – corporate and restructuring partner Francesco De Gennaro and antitrust partner Domenico Gullo – while real estate partner Carmine Bruno joins this week from Dewey. A team of 10 associates are also joining Ashurst from Dewey and NCTM, with start dates for those joining from NCTM still to be confirmed.

The firm is also changing its Italian leadership, with Franco Vigliano, who is currently Milan head, becoming Italy head and Mark Sperotto, who is currently Italy head, becoming country managing partner.

Ashurst senior partner Charlie Geffen said: "We are confident that opening an office in Rome will increase the strength of our practice in Italy and this team will help us to widen our existing client relationships as well as develop new ones."

Sperotto added: "We have wanted to open in Rome for a while, but were looking for the right opportunity to facilitate a move, which we have now found with these three partners and teams.

"Rome is a very specific and closed market and it is about having the right contacts and know-how on the ground in order to be able to properly integrate yourself there.

"Although the financial centre still remains in Milan, the financial regulators and government agencies are in Rome, so we felt it was important for us to have a presence there to take advantage of further work flows and have a complete offering tailored to the uniqueness of the Italian market."

Ashurst already has a base in Milan, which it opened in 2000 after the firm split from with then Italian ally Negri-Clementi.

The firm's move into Rome comes after Ashurst moved to bulk up its Italian practice in London and Italy with three new partners in February 2010. At that time Dewey partners Ugo Giordano and Fabio Pizzoccheri joined Ashurst's banking and capital markets team in London, with Ilario Giangrossi joining in Italy from Pedersoli & Associati.

De Gennaro and Gullo's departures from NCTM come after Legance last month picked up a five-lawyer litigation and arbitration team in Milan from NCTM led by partner Paolo Pototschnig.