Paolo Palmigiano, Taylor Wessing

Taylor Wessing has hired a new U.K. head of its competition, EU and trade group – its sixth partner hire this month.

Paolo Palmigiano joined the firm yesterday (November 28) from Japanese manufacturer Sumitomo Electric Industries, where he was general counsel and chief compliance officer in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Prior to joining Sumitomo, Palmigiano spent three years at Lloyds Banking Group as head of competition and nine years as head of competition and regulatory law at BT.

The competition role at Taylor Wessing has been vacant since former competition head Robert Vidal departed the firm in May to join Pinsent Masons.

Palmigiano's appointment follows the announcement last week that the firm had appointed a new regional managing partner in the Middle East, Osama Hassan from Pinsent Masons. Hassan had previously worked at Taylor Wessing as its head of corporate in the region up until 2012.

Earlier in the month, the firm also appointed another in-house lawyer, Barbora Dubanská, as its co-head of life sciences in the central and eastern European region. Dubanská was previously head of legal at Novartis Oncology Czech Republic.

Other partner hires this month include Eversheds Sutherland partner Adrian Toutoungi in the firm's Cambridge office and arbitration partner Nick Storrs.