Paul Hastings has relaunched in Brussels with the hire of competition lawyer Salomé Cisnal de Ugarte from King & Spalding.
Cisnal de Ugarte joins as a partner and will chair the Brussels office. She led her former firm’s EU antitrust and competition practice for nearly five years, having spent four years at Hogan Lovells as a partner and head of that firm’s Brussels office. Her CV includes roles as a partner at Crowell & Moring and in-house at Whirlpool, where she was director of legal and regulatory affairs. She also worked for both Mayer Brown and Freshfields, where she trained and qualified.
Cisnal de Ugarte advises on all aspects of EU competition law and has substantial experience in cross-border mergers and joint ventures, high-stakes antitrust investigations and complex vertical agreements.
She has secured unconditional merger control, FDI and FSR clearance for some of the world’s most prominent companies and private equity firms. Prior to her arrival, the Brussels office was run part-time by Paris partner Camille Paulhac, who joined six years ago.
Her network is impressive, spanning from work as a non-governmental adviser to the European Commission’s antitrust regulator (DG COMP) on merger control at the International Competition Network (ICN), to her role as an officer on the Merger Working Group of the IBA’s antitrust section, alongside leadership roles at the American Chamber of Commerce in Brussels.
Frank Lopez, Paul Hastings’ chair, said: “As antitrust enforcement continues to intensify across industries such as tech, pharma, energy and financial services, Salomé’s stellar experience and reputation will enhance our ability to win mandates and advise our M&A and private equity clients in navigating increasingly complex, multijurisdictional regulatory scrutiny.
“As the centre of European antitrust law and policy, Brussels is a critical market in which to add premier talent such as Salomé as we continue building our destination European and global antitrust practice and supporting our growing M&A and PE platform.”
Cisnal de Ugarte advises a wide-ranging client base, spanning large corporations, private equity firms, asset managers and global investment funds, synonymous with her new firm’s extensive M&A mandates. She said the move would enable her to work closely with the firm’s M&A and PE partners, noting its experience with complex and high-profile transactions.
She said: “I look forward to drawing on my experience in EU and international antitrust to deliver integrated, cross-border advice to clients navigating an increasingly demanding regulatory environment.”
A spokesperson for King & Spalding said: “We thank Salomé and wish her well.”
Cisnal de Ugarte’s arrival in Brussels builds on growth in the US and elsewhere, with the antitrust team nearly tripling in size over the past four years.
Alongside Cisnal de Ugarte, the antitrust team added Sally Evans, who transferred from Kirkland & Ellis in London, and Gail Levine and Josh Soven, who joined the Washington DC office from Mayer Brown and Paul Weiss respectively. Additionally, Stephen McIntyre joined the firm in Los Angeles from O’Melveny & Myers.
Paul Hastings has hired aggressively of late more broadly, particularly in London, with eight partners joining that office over the past six months, including this week with the arrival of high-yield partner Brad Weyland from A&O Shearman. That momentum has been slowed, however, with a two-partner defection to Skadden Arps in the US also this week.
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