Simon Beswick

Osborne Clarke has added eight lawyers – including DWF head of employment Andrew Chamberlain – to its global network, as part of a drive to strengthen its international bases as it seeks to become "famous" in the digital transformation sphere.

The international recruitment push has seen OC bolster its employment, tax and competition teams across its London, Sweden, Netherlands, Brussels and Singapore bases.

Chamberlain is one of two new additions to OC's London base, vacating his role as national head of employment at DWF after four years. At that firm, he led a 60-strong employment team advising a variety of FTSE 100 companies on the employment aspects of M&A deals and multi-jurisdictional outsourcing projects.

Squire Patton Boggs employment partner Anna Elliott joins the London base alongside Chamberlain, returning to the City from the US firm's Sydney office, where she was a partner in the labour and employment team advising clients based in the recruitment, media and entertainment, and technology sectors.

OC's new hires come on the back of an international drive to strengthen its practices in its current jurisdictions. The firm is aiming to leverage the new additions to make it a more attractive offering to international, multi-jurisdictional clients, of which Vodafone and Air Canada are current examples.

OC chief executive Simon Beswick (pictured) told Legal Week: "The goal is to focus on digital transformation, on where industries are rapidly changing and innovating. We want to provide a suite of legal services in those services internationally, and these include employment, competition and antitrust advice, and also tax, and IT and intellectual property advice.

He added: "We wanted to offer these services from the outset. But now we've been able to find the right people."

OC's Sweden office – which opened last September – has hired two new employment partners from Stockholm-based firms, including former Cederquistand counsel Jenny Jilmstad and Bjorn Rustare, who was counsel at local firm Roschier.

The latest recruitment drive kicked off earlier this month, when the firm brought in a new head of tax for its Netherlands base, Job van der Pol, who joined from Freshfields' Amsterdam office, and hired IT and telecoms specialist Laurens Dauwe, who joined the Brussels office from Belgian outfit Stibbe.

It has also bolstered its Singapore office with the addition of competition duo Harikumar Sukumar Pillay, who joins from Singapore's Competition and Consumer Commission's enforcement division, and local firm Drew & Napier's assistant head of competition and reulatory economics Poh Lip Hang.

OC has turned its attentions to building out its Asia offering in recent years, launching associations with Shanghai-based firm Zhang Yu & Partners, OC Queen Street in Singapore and Koh Vass & Co in Hong Kong. Earlier this year, it launched an office in Bangalore via its relationship with BTG Legal.

OC international employment group co-head Julian Hemming remarked: "It's a case of being really strong in the countries we're in. We've built a very strong international network, and it's about being credible where we are. This is a really exciting time for us."

Alongside the recent headcount growth, OC has also demonstrated strong financial gains this year. Earlier this summer the firm posted double-digit revenue growth, with international revenues rising 14% to €273m (£240m).

Beswick summed up the firm's ambition, explaining: "We're trying to be famous for digital transformation and we're trying to get our lawyers focused on the future."