Morgan Lewis & Bockius has ramped up its London corporate team with a triple partner hire from Herbert Smith Freehils (HSF), including London private equity head Mark Geday.

Geday is joined in the move to the US firm by corporate partners Nicholas Moore and Tomasz Wozniak.

Geday, who has spent more than 22 years at the firm and became head of its London PE practice last year, specialises in asset management and private equity.

Moore, meanwhile, who joined HSF as a trainee in 1998 and made partner in 2007, focuses on M&A in the technology, media and telecoms sector, while Wozniak joined HSF's Moscow office in 2011 from Clifford Chance and was promoted to partner the following year, before relocating to London in 2015.

The trio have worked together for a number of years, and all three have spent time in HSF's base in the Russian capital, with Geday there between 2012 and 2015, and Moore from 2007 to 2012.

Earlier this year, Wozniak acted as part of the HSF team advising Uber on the combination of its ridesharing business in Russia and neighbouring Commonwealth of Independent States countries with taxi company Yandex, which was advised by Morgan Lewis.

Morgan Lewis chair Jami McKeon said: "Mark, Nick, and Tom have served clients across a range of vital sectors and regions, further deepening the ability of our corporate and business transactions practice to facilitate the kinds of deals that are critical to our clients' global growth strategies."

Steve Browne, the leader of Morgan Lewis's corporate and business transactions practice, added: "Growing our corporate transactional and private equity team in London with Mark, Nick and Tom is a key step in expanding our capabilities and deepening our services to clients in London, throughout Europe, and around the globe."

The US firm's London office now has more than 80 lawyers, with other recent hires including finance partners Paul Denham and Georgia Quenby, who joined from Dorsey & Whitney and Reed Smith earlier this year.

The HSF trio will take Morgan Lewis' five-partner corporate team in London to a total of eight.

Last year, the firm also picked up two partners from Norton Rose Fulbright – global head of investigations Chris Warren-Smith and dispute resolution partner Melanie Ryan.

HSF said: "We can confirm that Mark Geday, Nicholas Moore and Tomasz Wozniak are retiring from the partnership. We thank them for their contribution to the firm, both during their time in Moscow and London, and we wish them well."