Osborne Clarke (OC) has strengthened its litigation and TMT practices with the hires of Tom Ellis and John Buyers from Wragge & Co and Stephenson Harwood respectively.

Ellis will join OC's dispute resolution team in London on 20 February following three-and-a-half years at Wragges.

His arrival comes on the back of the recruitment of international arbitration expert Greg Fullelove as a partner from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in September 2012 and brings the number of partners in OC's commercial litigation team to seven.

In addition, Buyers, who headed up Stephenson Harwood's commercial, outsourcing and technology group, joins OC today (11 February) and will split his time between the firm's Bristol and London offices. OC now boasts a total of 15 TMT partners. Buyers will be replaced at Stephenson Harwood by Dan Holland.

Buyers re-joins former Stephenson Harwood chief executive John Pike, who was appointed to OC's banking team in January following his departure from Dundas & Wilson last year.

The hires form the latest in a string of arrivals at OC in 2013. In addition to Pike's arrival, the firm is due to welcome Dundas real estate partner Nick Padget in the coming months while it has also hired Ben Truman as finance partner from the same firm.

Last year OC expanded its presence in Germany opening a new Hamburg office and hiring four new partners for the launch. In addition the firm is gearing up to launch in both Paris and Brussels after it broke off its alliance with French outfit Stehlin & Associes, Dutch firm Ploum Lodder Princen and Belgium's De Wolf & Partners in March last year to focus on building its own international presence.