Morrison Foerster is opening in Germany after poaching Hogan Lovells entire Berlin team, including nine partners.
The US firm's new Berlin branch - its third in Europe - will be led by two of the firm's new partners: tax and real estate lawyer Jens-Uwe Hinder and employment specilist Hanno Timner.
Corporate lawyers Karin Arnold, Dirk Besse and Jorg Meissner; M&A, TMT and media specialist Christoph Wagner, who was managing partner of Hogan's Berlin base; competition partner Eckhard Bremer; litigator Thomas Keul; and Andreas Grünwald, whose focus is regulatory and competition matters in media, are the other seven partners joining MoFo.
The new office is the second MoFo has launched this year. In January the firm expanded its Asian network, opening its fifth office in the region in Singapore.
Following the move, which saw Hogan Lovells lose twenty per cent of its German offering, the firm has announced that it would be closing its Berlin office.