Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson has continued its London investment push, with the hire of Norton Rose Fulbright corporate partner Ian Lopez.

He is the second partner to join Fried Frank's City office in recent months, after it picked up Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer corporate and capital markets partner Ashar Qureshi in September.

Lopez, who joined Norton Rose in a lateral move from Allen & Overy in 2009, has experience in all types of corporate transactions including public and private M&A, equity capital market transactions, joint ventures and corporate restructurings.

His major clients have included NASDAQ, UBM, Guardian Media Group and Merrill Lynch.

Lopez' hire comes three months after Fried Frank appointed Qureshi as head of its EMEA transactions practice, after four years as a partner at Freshfields.

The US firm also last year boosted its City base with Ashurst real estate partner duo Patrick Williams and Darren Rogers.

However, its London finance head Stuart Brinkworth departed to join US rival Mayer Brown last year.

"Ian is widely recognised in the M&A space and his versatile experience directly complements our core capabilities in London," Fried Frank London managing partner Mark Mifsud said in a statement. "We look forward to working with him as we continue our mission of developing further a stronger M&A practice in Europe."

US firms have continued their exponential growth in the UK this year, with a plethora of heavyweight firms including Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins and White & Case making lateral partner hires to their City bases.