Latham & Watkins has made a twin partner hire from White & Case in the US to bolster the firm’s energy and infrastructure financing capabilities.

Christopher Peponis joins the firm in Houston and Hamad Al-Hoshan joins in New York, with both sitting in the firm’s project development and finance practice and the energy and infrastructure industry group. Peponis’s practice focuses on global LNG projects, alternative fuels and other infrastructure projects, while Al-Hoshan focuses on domestic and international project finance deals in the energy and infrastructure sectors.

Jeff Greenberg, global chair of Latham’s project development and finance practice, said: “Chris and Hamad’s experience and knowledge will help us continue to navigate this ever-changing project development and finance landscape. They are known for innovative, practical and commercially oriented solutions and will be a great complement to our team.”

Peponis joins after just short of four years at White & Case, having made partner at the start of last year. He previously worked in-house at Shell in Australia and the Netherlands before becoming legal counsel for its LNG trading and supply business in Houston. Al-Hoshan, meantime, spent more than 11 years at White & Case and was also part of the same partner promotion round as Peponis at the start of last year.

Justin Stolte, global chair of Latham’s energy and infrastructure and industry group, described the pair as highly skilled practitioners with a reputation for excellence in their fields.

He added: “Their additions help bolster our leading position in energy and infrastructure, further enabling us to assist clients not only with the current issues they face, but also future opportunities and challenges.”

The duo are the latest additions to the firm’s energy and infrastructure group. Infrastructure lawyer Jason Webber joined in February, also from White & Case, where he was a partner in its Americas energy, infrastructure, project and asset finance group and co-head of its global oil and gas group. The firm made another senior infrastructure hire last summer with the arrival of Ravi Purohit from private equity firm Blackstone, where he was GC for its infrastructure business. Purohit joined as global vice chair of Latham’s energy and infrastructure group.

Also last summer the Los Angeles-based firm added a trio of partners to its energy and infrastructure group in Singapore, ahead of an expected uptick in activity by infrastructure and private equity funds in Asia. Sidharth Bhasin and James Clayton-Payne joined from Shearman & Sterling’s M&A team in the city state, while Don Stokes came over from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s Singapore energy and infrastructure group.