Jones Day has made a trio of heavyweight corporate partner hires for its New York and London offices, including senior lawyers from client General Electric (GE).

Benedict O'Halloran, previously GE's UK general counsel and lead lawyer for european transactions, will join the London office, while the company's executive counsel for M&A in the US, George Flemma, will move to Jones Day's New York office.

Shearman & Sterling's Latin America M&A practice head Michael McGuinness, who has previously worked with O'Halloran and Flemma at GE, will also join the New Yorl office.

GE is a long-term client of Cleveland-founded Jones Day.

At Shearman, McGuinness advised GrupaSura on its $3.6bn (£2.2bn) acquisition of ING's Latin America pensions, life insurance, and investment operations, and Anglo American in its $5.4bn (£3.3bn) sale to Mitsubishi of a 24.5% stake in Chilean mining subsidiary Anglo American Sur.

Flemma, who was previously a senior associate in Shearman's M&A group and a senior counsel at Citigroup, has advised GE on its $1.3bn (£790m) acquisition of British manufacturer Wellstream Holdings.

O'Halloran, who has been at GE for 12 years, most recently advised the company on its proposed €12.35bn (£9.9bn) acquisition of the power and grid divisions of Alstom.

"These three lawyers are terrific additions to our M&A practice, each a first-rate practitioner, with substantial cross-border experience, and in very active sectors," said Bob Profusek, head of Jones Day's global M&A practice.

"Their experience at GE will help us continue to drive innovation in client service."