German law firm Luther has hired a trio of employment lawyers from DLA Piper, a day after the firm announced it was teaming up with French giant Fidal to launch the new exclusive association, Unyer.

Marco Arteaga and Annekatrin Veit will join the Cologne-based firm as partners alongside senior associate Georg Haberkorn in July, strengthening Luther’s employment practice in Munich and Frankfurt. 

Both Arteaga and Veit are pension schemes experts. The pair combine for more than 40 years of experience advising on strategic and operational issues related to employment, tax, social security, commercial and accounting law.

Based in Frankfurt, Arteaga specialises in company pensions and focuses on advising domestic and cross-border clients on dealing with balance sheet problems resulting from company pension liabilities. He possesses considerable expertise in working on internal and external negotiations with works councils and trade unions. 

During his time at DLA Piper, he provided legal guidance to the German government on the last major overhaul of the German Company Pensions Act in 2017. 

Veit, meanwhile, wore many hats as counsel in DLA Piper’s Munich employment outfit, doubling as a tax litigator alongside her work on various aspects of occupational pension schemes. 

She mainly advises on special pensions issues related to questions of statutory insolvency insurance and contractual insolvency protection and has assisted in a number of negotiations in M&A transactions and harmonisation of pension schemes. 

Luther’s managing partner, Elisabeth Lepique, said Arteaga and Veit’s work at the intersection of tax and employment will strengthen the firm’s employment practice in an “excellent” way. 

"With Marco Arteaga and Annekatrin Veit, we have been able to gain the top team in the field of company pensions for Luther,” added Paul Schreiner, head of the firm’s employment team. “The need for advice in this area has increased noticeably, so that we are now excellently positioned with this reinforcement.”

The trio is rounded out by Haberkorn, who is moving to Luther as a senior associate after five years in DLA Piper’s Munich office. He has worked with German and international clients with a particular focus on the establishment, amendment and closure of occupational pension schemes and the design of corresponding financing structures. 

The announcement comes just a day after the firm revealed it had joined forces with Paris-based powerhouse Fidal to launch an exclusive association under the umbrella of a Swiss Verein, with the goal of its international brand Unyer establishing a presence in the majority of the top 20 global economies by 2030.