Reed Smith has hired former Simmons & Simmons' Beijing office head, Eric Lin, as a partner for its energy and natural resources industry group in the Chinese capital.

Lin, who is qualified in the U.S. and the U.K., focuses on mergers and acquisitions, and energy and natural resources projects development and financing. In 2016, he represented Shell International Ltd., a London-based management consulting arm of Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch Shell Plc., on a $10 billion petrochemical joint-venture project with China National Offshore Oil Corp. in the southern Chinese city of Huizhou.

Lin leaves Simmons after eight years with the firm. He joined Simmons as a partner in 2011 as the U.K. firm was preparing to launch its Beijing office. Lin became head of the Beijing office in 2017 after the departure of former China country head Davis Wang, who left to co-found a corporate advisory firm. Previously, Lin practised at Allen & Overy for a decade, most recently as a senior associate, in Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai and London.

Reed Smith's Beijing office managing partner, Michael Fosh, said in a statement that Lin joins the firm "at an important time with the continuing development of the transformational Belt and Road Initiative", referring to the Chinese government-led major economic project to build infrastructure across Asia, Europe and Africa.

"Eric's arrival is a key piece of the ongoing growth [of] our practice in Asia," added Denise Jong, Reed Smith's Hong Kong-based Asia-Pacific managing partner, in the statement. In recent months, the firm has recruited regulatory enforcement partner Dora Wang in Shanghai, from Morgan, Lewis & Bockius; and in Hong Kong, disputes partner Stephen Chan from local firm Oldham, Li & Nie and regulatory partner Mark West from Kennedys.

The hires of Chan and West were part of a rebuilding effort for Reed Smith's disputes practice in Hong Kong, after a nine-partner departure earlier this year to Australian firm MinterEllison.

Meanwhile, the departure of Lin leaves Simmons with five partners in Beijing: banking and finance lawyer Yongmei Cai, disputes specialist Joseph Chu, IP specialist George Chan, and corporate and commercial lawyers Melody Yang and Jingyuan Shi. Shi will soon relocate to the southern Chinese technology hub of Shenzhen to lead Simmons' new office there, focusing on telecommunications, media and technology.

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