Morgan Lewis has hired a five-lawyer international trade and investigations team in Paris from Hughes Hubbard.
The team is led by partners Marie-Agnès Nicolas and Anne Gaustad-Hanken, who co-chaired their former firm’s European investigations, enforcement and compliance practice. They have moved over alongside of counsel Mathieu Rossignol and two associates.
Morgan Lewis said the team’s hire boosted its transatlantic enforcement and export controls capabilities following the hire of senior trade partner Michael Huneke from Hughes Hubbard in Washington DC last September.
“Our clients worldwide are navigating intensifying geopolitical tension, evolving sanctions regimes and heightened cross-border enforcement risk,” said Morgan Lewis chair, Jami McKeon. “This team reinforces our ability to guide clients operating at the intersection of international commerce, enforcement exposure and national security regulation.”
Nicolas, who has spent the past 15 years at Hughes Hubbard and made partner at the firm in 2022, advises on anti-corruption and compliance programmes as well as internal reviews. Gaustad-Hanken, who has been a partner at the firm since 2019, focuses on cross-border enforcement matters involving economic sanctions, export controls, anti-corruption compliance, business and human rights risk and corporate governance.
Their arrival means Morgan Lewis’s international trade and national security team now has partners in Paris, alongside a wider team of 30 mostly US-based partners. The US practice earns top billing in legal rankings guides and regularly works with defence, aerospace and satellite companies.
The team’s hire brings Morgan Lewis’s Paris headcount to 70 lawyers, according to its website. The office’s ranks were significantly swollen last year when it absorbed the 54-lawyer Paris office of Kramer Levin that was left out of its merger with Herbert Smith Freehills.
The group brought capabilities across M&A and private equity, banking and finance, compliance, litigation, employment, IP, tax and investigations.
“Paris is an increasingly important hub for cross-border compliance and enforcement work,” said Dana Anagnostou, Paris office managing partner. “This team adds meaningful depth to our compliance and investigations capability here and enhances our ability to serve clients navigating complex regulatory expectations across France and the broader European market.”
Firms have been beefing up their international trade teams on both sides of the Atlantic to help clients make sense of increasing global trade complexities.
Team moves last year included a three-lawyer EU trade group that left Steptoe in Brussels for Hogan Lovells and a 17-lawyer team that joined Pillsbury in Washington DC from Baker McKenzie, led by partners Daniel Porter, Matthew McCullough and James Durling.
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