Photo: Mike Scarcella/ALM

Dentons has hired Allen & Overy attorney Juraj Gyarfáš as a partner in its office in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Gyarfáš was head of Allen & Overy's competition practice in the Slovak capital before joining Dentons.

His practice focuses on M&A, dispute resolution and competition law. He has advised sellers and buyers on numerous high-profile deals in Slovakia and the wider central and east European region. They include HB Reavis on the sale of several office, retail and logistics assets in Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

He also advised Fortuna Entertainment Group on the acquisition of Hattrick Sports Group Ltd., Ireland, the owner of betting operators in Romania and Croatia and B2B operators in Spain, Germany and other European countries.

While at Allen & Overy, Gyarfáš spent half a year on secondment in Brussels, working on cases before the European Commission and EU Courts. Prior to working at Allen & Overy, he worked at Dentons' legacy firm Salans.

Juraj Gyarfáš

Gyarfáš told Law.com that while he had enjoyed the nine years he spent at Allen & Overy, moving to Dentons was "a challenge worth taking".

Dentons is growing in Bratislava and across the region, he said.

Gyarfáš said many international law firms had pulled back from the region after the big wave of privatisation in the late 1990s and in the wake of the financial crisis. Those markets were not as profitable as before, he said, partly because strong local firms kept prices down.

He said there are growth opportunities in the region as local companies grow and expand into more developed markets. Gyarfáš gave the example of HB Reavis, a Slovak real estate company that had started locally and was now developing prime projects in London, which he described as "one of the most difficult real estate markets in the world".

Gyarfáš said that as the quality of governance in local courts and regulators improved, demand would increase for high-quality legal services.

Dentons has been steadily expanding its presence in continental Europe in recent years. It recently added lawyers to its Amsterdam office and has also increased headcount in Düsseldorf, Germany, Rome and Milan.