EY Law Loses Tax and Commercial Lawyer to Australian Firm
Senior tax and commercial lawyer Michael Patane left to lead the tax practice of the Australian firm HopgoodGanim Lawyers.
June 18, 2019 at 04:14 PM
2 minute read
Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM
Senior tax and commercial lawyer Michael Patane has left EY Law, the legal arm of Big Four accounting firm Ernst & Young, to lead the tax practice of an Australian firm.
Patane joined HopgoodGanim Lawyers as a partner late last month, the local firm said in a statement.
He joined EY Law in July 2017, having previously worked as a consultant at national law firm Clayton Utz and before that at Deloitte Australia. Before that, he was deputy chief tax counsel at the Australian Taxation Office.
HopgoodGarmin said Brisbane-based Patane's specific tax experience includes due diligence, negotiating issues associated with sales and acquisitions, share sales and purchase agreements, joint ventures, shareholder agreements, property developments and funding agreements.
Managing partner Bruce Humphrys said in a statement he was excited by the "unique blend of legal and accounting firm experience" Patane brought to the firm's client-base Australia-wide.
With offices in Perth and Brisbane, HopgoodGarmin is a full-service commercial law firm and also has a family law practice. It has more than 280 staff and 44 partners. The tax practice currently consists of Patane and two other lawyers.
The legal arm of EY has made a big push in Asia and Australia, as have its Big Four rivals, hiring many lawyers away from traditional law firms, especially in Singapore and Hong Kong. In Australia, EY hired Lisa-Marie McKechnie in March as a financial services partner in Sydney from Australian firm Mills Oakley.
But the Big Four also sometimes lose lawyers and this is not the first such defection for EY in Australia. In September, James Beckley left EY, where he was a corporate law director in Sydney, to join Australian firm Gadens as a partner.
But in April, Dmitry Tetiouchev, EY Law's Singapore-based Asia-Pacific leader, told Law.com International that EY plans to broaden its reach in southeast Asia.
In addition to Australia, EY's global legal network has about 1,800 lawyers across 75 jurisdictions, including China, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore and Vietnam.
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