Herbert Smith has bulked up its City construction and engineering practice with the hire of a King & Spalding team led by partner James Bremen.

Bremen is set to join on 1 August with associates Simon Halliwell and Mark Veitch from the US law firm's London office. He specialises in sectors including mining, power, petrochemicals and infrastructure, and will be the second non-contentious partner in Herbert Smith's City construction practice alongside global practice co-head Nicholas Downing.

Bremen said: "Herbert Smith has an international platform that is particularly complementary to my client portfolio, with its focus on emerging markets. I was also impressed by the structure of its partnership, shown by the thorough process that I had to go through and the collegiality among the partners.

"I will be joining with a view to growing and developing the non-contentious side of the construction practice at the firm, using its international reach," he added.

Bremen's client list includes Qatar Petroleum, the Capital Market Authority of Saudi Arabia and Egyptian telecom operator Orascom Telecom.

He has been a partner at King & Spalding since 2009 when he joined from City boutique Maxwell Winward, where he joined as a partner after more than five years as an associate at White & Case.

Bremen's hire comes after Herbert Smith brought in Taylor Wessing financial services regulatory team head Clive Cunningham this month, as part of the firm's bid to target more non-contentious regulatory work.

The firm has also recruited its first US-qualified investigations partner in recent weeks, with the hire of Goodwin Procter's Kyle Wombolt in Hong Kong.