A practice focusing on English law in the London office of Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP is being launched by the firm. It will be led by a new employee, Simon Witty, who is joining the firm from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP
Witty worked with Freshfields since 1996 and said that he enjoyed his time with the firm. He also said that the chance to operate his practice with Davis Polk brought on a brand new challenge for him that would also be exciting.
“We have seen Simon’s work firsthand in handling some of the most complex equity transactions in Europe,” Thomas J. Reid, the managing partner for Davis Polk, explained in a statement released on Friday. “He is ideally suited to help us launch our English law practice in London and to develop our existing English law capabilities in China and Brazil.”
According to his Freshfields biography, Witty received his education at Balliol College at the University of Oxford.
Witty was involved in multiple international public offerings, according to his biography from Freshfields. Those offerings include Virgin Mobile, Eircom Ltd (an Irish telecommunications firm), and Premier Foods PLC (the largest producer of food for the United Kingdom).
“We expect to make additional senior strategic hires in our London office like Simon, who fit well in our collaborative culture and practice in our core areas,” Reid said.
Davis Polk already offers securities services for the world in Europe, Asia and Latin American but the expansion of its London office will only help to strengthen those services for the firm, according to Reid.
The Davis Polk office in London opened back in 1973 and it serves as the headquarters for the practice in Europe. The firm has previously worked on mergers and acquisition cases in Europe over the past couple of years.
English legal services are already offered by Davis Polk in the firm’s offices in Sao Paulo and Hong Kong.
Swiss electronic connector makers TE Connectivity Ltd. was represented by Davis Polk when it acquired Deutsch Group SAS, which is an electronics company from France. The deal was for $2.1 billion and it was announced back in November. In May, the law firm was able to hire Jacques Naquet-Radiguet from the firm of Shearman & Sterling LLP to lead the Paris office of Davis Polk.
Naquet-Radiguet worked on deals including selling the Lutetia Hotel from the Starwood Capital Group Global LLC to Alrov Properties & Lodgings Ltd. He also worked on selling the Hotel de Crillon to an investor from Saudi Arabia.