Germany

Osborne Clarke is sprucing up its German management team with the promotion of Cologne head Carsten Schneider to managing partner. Current managing partner Stefan Rizor will be bumped up to senior partner. In addition, the firm also recently acquired renewable energy specialist Alexander Dlouhy for its Cologne team as a partner.

Australia

DLA Piper has lost both superannuation partner Heather Gray and her team who have defected to Melbourne firm Hall & Wilcox, according to Lawyers Weekly. Ms Gray, who has over 25 years of experience in superannuation, financial services and trusts, becomes partner in H&W’s superannuation and financial services team.  Andrew Fairley, Jodi Preston and Lalitha Visuasam have been appointed consultant, special counsel and senior associate respectively.

UK

Following the mergers of insurance law firms Plexus and Greenwoods in May, umbrella company Parabis has announced its promotions. The firm will have 11 new partners on board with eight at Plexus and three at Greenwoods. The Plexus partnership in London promoted construction partner Justin Clayden, personal injury and clinical negligence partner Jamie Colman, personal injury and litigation partner Allison Kemp and professional indemnity partner Alain Orengo. Casualty partner Helen Randall and property recovery partner Stephen Lewis will take on their new roles in Leeds. Nicola Skeldon will move over to Acumen in Manchester and Richard Guest will make his way to the national practice as injury and litigation partner. In Greenwoods, Tim Ingram will take on head of criminal defence in Milton Keynes and Alex Puddy will reside in Manchester as a new personal injury partner. John O’Shea in London and Andy Connor in Bristol will be the new property, insurance and construction partners.

Baker & McKenzie add two new partners to their London office in a management board shake-up. The firm’s eight-member UK board can now boast three women with the election of partners Monica Kurnatowska and Helen Bradley for a two-year term. They joined the firm in 1995 and 1996 respectively; Kurnatowska is an employment partner who last year headed a team advising General Motors, and Bradley is a corporate partner and former head of the London corporate finance team. Re-elected for a two-year term is dispute resolution partner Tom Cassels. Stepping down to pave the way for the two women are former London managing partner Gary Senior and Peter Strivens. The announcement appeared the same day that the firm declared a 71 partner promotion worldwide, of which 32 per cent were female.

China

Shortly after Vinson’s Shanghai office announced plans to close its doors, Sidley Austin Singapore scooped up Vinson’s former M&A partner Tju Liang. Liang, who is qualified to practice in both New York and Singapore, will contribute to the firm’s energy practice as cross-border M&A in the next few weeks. The firm just recently gained status to practice local law in most areas. Liang will work alongside Tom Deegan who was recently appointed from Simmons and Simmons in April.

Singapore

As Taylor Wessing takes steps to bolster its regulatory and compliance practice in Southeast Asia the firm snatches up Nizam Ismail, former Morgan Stanley executive director and head of compliance for Southeast Asia, as partner to head the regional compliance solutions unit, the Lawyer reports. Mr Ismail will head both RHTLaw Taylor Wessing, the firm’s Singapore office that launched in March 2012 after Taylor Wessing’s alliance with Singaporean firm RHT Law, and the new RHTLaw Compliance Solutions consultancy firm for financial services alongside Singapore managing partner Tan Chong Huat.

Belgium

Competition law partner Charlotte Breuvart, formerly at Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, has joined Jones Day’s Brussels office as partner in the antitrust and competition practice, according to Bloomberg Law. Ms Breuvart is widely experienced with European competition law issues, having advised companies on various aspects including merger control, cartels, abuse of dominance and State aids.