Quinn Emanuel’s Brussels managing partner departs for Geradin Partners

Trevor Soames is the second competition partner to leave QE’s Brussels office in recent weeks

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European antitrust boutique Geradin Partners has hired Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan’s Brussels managing partner, leading competition specialist Trevor Soames.

Soames is set to join his new firm at the end of January when he will be reunited with the boutique’s founder, Damien Geradin, the pair having previously worked together at US firm Howrey before its collapse in 2011.

Soames is the second Brussels competition partner to depart Quinn Emanuel in recent weeks; Stephen Mavroghenis left the firm in December, with Law.com reporting today that he will be opening a Brussels office for Goodwin Procter in March.

Welcoming Soames to his firm, Geradin wrote on LinkedIn: “Trevor is one of Brussels’ finest and most experienced EU competition law practitioners. We were colleagues in a previous law firm where he was a great mentor.” He noted that the duo had worked together on various cases over the years, adding: “I cannot wait to be reunited with him.”

Fellow practitioners warmly welcomed the news, with one comparing it to “getting the band back together again”.

Before his eight-year stint at Quinn Emanuel, Soames spent five years at legacy Shearman & Sterling, which he joined following the demise of Howrey, whose Brussels office he founded in 2002. Before that, he was a partner at legacy firm Norton Rose.

He is widely respected as an advocate before the European courts, having acted on a vast array of first-instance and appellate cases, and being wise in the ways of the European Commission.

Mavroghenis, meanwhile, has departed Quinn Emanuel after more than seven years at the firm. He is a long-time colleague of Soames, having worked alongside him at Shearman, Howrey and Norton Rose.

A spokesman for Quinn Emanuel said: “We wish Trevor and Stephen well.”

It is understood that Miguel Rato – who worked alongside Soames and Mavroghenis at both Shearman and Howrey – will take over as QE’s Brussels managing partner on Soames’s departure.

The news comes as QE’s London office revealed turnover had broken through the £200m barrier for the first time, a 12% increase on the previous year, although profits dropped by nearly 7% to just over £143m.

Geradin Partners specialises in antitrust, digital regulation and litigation. It has more than 30 competition lawyers, including 12 partners, working across offices in Brussels, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Helsinki. 

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