Clifford Chance (CC) has added two disputes partners and a counsel to its Washington office, as part of a push to build up its white collar and regulatory practice in the US.

The hires comprise former deputy GC to the US Department of Commerce Joshua Berman, who has joined as a partner; Glen Donath, who co-heads Katten Muchin Rosenman's white collar, investigations and compliance practice;  and counsel Joshua Fitzhugh, who was previously a vice-president and group head of trade controls for BAE Systems in the UK.

The hires take the firm's US disputes practice to 16 partners and take CC's total lateral partner additions to 11 since last year.

David DiBari, head of the firm's Americas litigation and dispute resolution practice, said: "We are building one of the leading international white collar and regulatory practices in the US. We've just made a strong team even stronger, and we aren't done yet."

Berman spent 11 months as deputy GC at the US Department of Commerce until January this year. Before that, he was national co-chair of Katten Muchin's government investigations and white collar group, having joined that firm as a partner in 2010 from legacy SNR Denton.

He also spent more than eight years working for the US Department of Justice, where he worked on the Webster Commission in 2002 , investigating the case of FBI agent Robert Hanssen, who was convicted of spying for Moscow for 22 years.

Donath, who joined Katten Muchin in 2010 alongside Berman, previously worked for the fraud and public corruption section of the US Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia.

He also worked for Williams & Connolly, where he was a member of the trial team representing President Clinton during his impeachment proceedings as well as the Monica Lewinsky investigation in the late 1990s.

CC's hires come hot on the heels of Linklaters hiring Douglas Davison as a partner for its Washington white collar practice last month from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr.

During the past 18 months, CC has hired several other partners in the Americas. These include two corporate partners in New York, including the former group general counsel of Zurich Insurance Group Alice Kane and Joseph Cosentino, who rejoined the firm from Greenberg Traurig earlier this summer.

Last year, the firm also hired Robert Rice, formerly chief counsel to the chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission in New York.

Rice joined CC's litigation and dispute resolution practice as a partner from Ropes & Gray, where he spent just over a year.