Winston & Strawn is launching an office in Brussels, the firm's fourth base in Western Europe, in a boost for its EU competition practice.

The office, which the firm hopes to be operational by June, will initially be headed by London antitrust and competition partner Peter Crowther, with support from associate Lucie Fish.

Crowther, who joined Winston from collapsed firm Dewey & LeBoeuf last May, said the office would specifically focus on competition and EU trade matters.

He added that the move was part of an effort by the firm to put it on the map in the competition space, in competition with the likes of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and Latham & Watkins, both of which Crowther and his team regularly come across on European matters.

Much of Crowther's practice involves defending companies in enforcement proceedings, often simultaneously across a range of jurisdictions, as well as devising and implementing compliance programmes covering competition, trade, bribery and corruption.

While at Dewey, he advised Vedanta Resources on its $1.34bn (£907m) cross-border acquisition of three zinc mines from rival conglomerate Anglo American in 2010, in a deal which saw the Indian mining group become the world's largest zinc producer.

Last September, Winston & Strawn named UK commercial litigation head Michael Madden as managing partner of its London office, as part of a firmwide management rotation. Madden joined from Ashurst in 2011, when he was tasked with building the US firm's UK litigation presence from scratch.