Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld has made significent addtions to its team in London with the hire of three high profile partners from Bingham McCutchen.
In London restructuring partners James Roome and James Terry and debt capital markets partner Barry Russell will join the US firm to effectively establish a UK restructuring group. Roome and Russell are both recognised as Leading Lawyers in the IFLR1000 and the Bingham practice itself was ranked in Tier 1 for 'Bond holder and fund representation' in the last edition of the guide.
Before the announcement there had been rumours of departures from Bingham's London team in light of the US firm's apparent dicsussions with Morgan Lewis & Bockius in regard to a firm-wide merger.
Bingham's London office focuses on a few select areas notably restructuring, debt capital markets and financial services regulatory work.
Roome, who will take over as senior partner for Akin in London, said of the move: "Our financial restructuring team has, for many years, admired their stellar practice in the United States, which represents many of the same clients that we do. The combination of our practices in London, Hong Kong and Frankfurt with Akin Gump’s financial restructuring team in the United States and excellent energy, telecoms and investment funds practices in Europe and Asia will be a major step forward for our team"