Hester_Timothy-Article-201704261231

Covington & Burling is launching in Dubai and Johannesburg, with the hire of four partners leaving Chadbourne & Parke ahead of its merger with Norton Rose Fulbright.

The partners are set to be followed to Covington by a sizeable team, with around 25 associates and counsel from Chadbourne's London, Johannesburg and Dubai offices in talks over moves.

Chadbourne is currently gearing up to merge with Norton Rose, with the tie-up scheduled for the second quarter of 2017.

Three of the partners leaving Chadbourne will launch the new bases for Covington. Chadbourne Dubai office head Jack Greenwald and project finance partner Richard Keenan will open a Dubai branch for Covington, while Chadbourne project finance partner Ben Donovan will lead Covington's new Johannesburg office, splitting his time between the South African city and London.

Meanwhile, Chadbourne project finance partner Agnieszka Klich is joining Covington's London base alongside former Allen & Overy (A&O) partner David Miles, who in recent months has been working with A&O's flexible lawyer service Peerpoint. Until late last year, he had been a project finance partner at A&O, having joined the firm in 2000 as a trainee.

The five new partners are expected to start at Covington in the next few weeks.

Covington management and executive committee chair Tim Hester (pictured above) said: "We have been focused on building our project finance capabilities for many years, and these opportunities fit very well with that strategy. We have been active in the Middle East and Africa, so having offices in both regions will help amplify and support the activities the firm already has underway.

"We view this as an important step in terms of our Korean client base for significant work and are very focused on linking our Seoul office with our Middle East and African practice."

Covington, which is headquartered in Washington DC, currently has 10 offices around the world, including five in the US, three in Asia and European bases in London and Brussels.

The partner exits are the latest from Chadbourne after the firm struck a merger deal with Norton Rose Fulbright earlier this year. Other departures in recent months include corporate and project finance partner Margarita Oliva Sainz de Aja, who joined Baker McKenzie in January; a three-partner arbitration team which left for Cooley last December; and bankruptcy partner Douglas Deutsch, who joined Clifford Chance last summer.

Covington, meanwhile, has made a number of other significant recent hires, including former former BG Group GC Graham Vinter, who joined as senior of counsel in September last year. Last year, the firm also added five London partners from King & Wood Mallesons (KWM), including former Europe fraud and investigations head Ian Hargreaves, former global litigation head Craig Pollack and disputes partners Louise Freeman, Elaine Whiteford and Greg Lascelles.