Shearman & Sterling is on the way up. The firm has just consolidated its team after losing (in 2009) Annette Schild and Silvio Cappellari to Arnold & Porter, and more recently adding a list of high flying Howrey partners: Götz Drauz, Trevor Soames (former co-chair of Howrey's global practice), Geert Goeteyn, Stephen Mavroghenis and Miguel Rato....
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Shearman & Sterling is on the way up. The firm has just consolidated its team after losing (in 2009) Annette Schild and Silvio Cappellari to Arnold & Porter, and more recently adding a list of high flying Howrey partners: Götz Drauz, Trevor Soames (former co-chair of Howrey's global practice), Geert Goeteyn, Stephen Mavroghenis and Miguel Rato. The five partners also brought with them a team of ten associates.
"They have hired substantial resources from Howrey," says a peer. "It has a strong UK office and good practice in the US, but it will take time for the new team to settle in," says another peer, adding: "Lars Kjølbye and Drauz had a really great partnership at Howrey and now they have split, what effect will it have?"
The new team needs time in the market to fully re-establish itself but in many ways it is the new contender for the very top of the table. Its list of recent mandates is already impressive. Meyer-Lindemann led teams to advise Cargolux in the cartel investigation into price fixing in the air freight sector. Cargolux was at the time of writing in the court of appealing and in the process of handling damages claims.
On merger matters, Drauz and Mavroghenis were advising Caterpillar on its $8.6 billion acquisition of Bucyrus and was advising Nestlé of a £39 billion disposal of a majority interest in Alcon to Novartis. In 2010 aviation expert Soames helped United Airlines get clearance for its combination with Continental Airlines and was continuing to advise United on investigations into the STAR alliance.
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