Linklaters has relocated London corporate partner Casper Lawson to New York to fill the gap left by corporate partner Nick Rees, who returned to London earlier this summer after a four-year stint as US co-managing partner.

Lawson, who made partner in 1995 and has spent time in the magic circle firm's Frankfurt and Tokyo offices, will spend a minimum of four years in the US.

He will be the only UK corporate partner in the magic circle firm's New York base, working alongside five US-qualified corporate partners.

Lawson has particular experience in the financial institutions sector and is currently co-head of global insurance at Linklaters. The move will see him working with some of Rees's clients, which include banks, corporates and private equity houses such as Citi, Dow Chemical and HSBC Private Equity.

Rees commented: "There are a lot of synergies between mine and Casper's client base, and he is in a fantastic position to start where I left off when leaving New York earlier this summer."

Most recently, Lawson took a lead role for Citi on its £1.9bn sale of the UK credit card assets of online bank Egg to Barclays. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer advised Barclays on that deal, which represented the latest in a series of credit card portfolio sales by the US-based banking group.

Rees and fellow former US co-head Larry Byrne stepped down from their posts earlier this year, with Conrado Tenaglia and Jeff Norton replacing them. Tenaglia was previously co-managing partner for Linklaters in Spain. Rees now sits within Linklaters London private equity practice but will also advise on mainstream M&A.