Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer partner William Woo is to rejoin his former firm Latham & Watkins just weeks after a seven-strong team, including his former colleagues, departed from the US outfit.

Woo, who is a Hong Kong-qualified corporate partner with experience working on major Hong Kong IPOs, first joined Latham & Watkins in 2008 from Allen & Overy, along with the magic circle firm's Asia corporate chief Michael Liu, its China group head Kenneth Chan, and four other partners Jane Ng, Simon Berry, Stanley Chow and Cathy Yeung.

He left the US firm in 2011 to join Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe, and in January 2013 was snatched up by Freshfields.

His return to Latham comes shortly members of his old team – Liu, Berry and Ng – were hired by Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft along with four other senior lawyers Stephen Chan, Olivia Wong, Terris Tang and Eva Tam.

It will boost Latham's Hong Kong focused team to four partners, alongside Chan and Cheung – who is co-chair of the Greater China group – as well as Hong Kong finance chair Howard Lam, who also joined from Freshfields in January last year.

It marks the fourth partner departure from Freshfields in the last year, others including Michael Han, who is now China antitrust head at PRC outfit Fangda, and Mark Parsons, who was appointed leader of the Asian IP practice at Hogan Lovells.