Firm hires: Norton Rose Fulbright

Global legal practice Norton Rose Fulbright is pleased to announce the appointment of antitrust and competition partner Maxim Kleine, effective from 1 October 2014. Maxim will join as a partner in the Hamburg office. He was previously Head of Antitrust at Oppenhoff & Partner.

Maxim’s practice is centred around behavioural and contentious work, with a focus on cartel work, abuse of dominance, market investigations and antitrust damages litigation. He has many years’ experience in German and European antitrust law – in particular in cartel proceedings before the German Federal Cartel Office and the European Commission – as well as in German and European merger control, particularly on the structuring of co-operations and joint ventures and in litigation and arbitration.

Maxim is recognised by the German legal directory, Juve 2013/2014, as being “creative, very well connected, and efficient” and for providing “very well-founded and high-level professional advice”. In the competition section of current edition’s Who’s Who Legal, he is recognised as “a superb litigator.”

Maxim will complement and significantly strengthen the German practice’s competition offering. He will be working closely with the German competition team around Matthias Nordmann, based in Munich, and partners Michael Jürgen Werner and Christian Filippitsch, based in Brussels.

Martin Coleman, Global Head of Antitrust and Competition at Norton Rose Fulbright said: “Germany is an important and growing market for our business globally and Maxim’s appointment adds further weight to our German competition practice. His appointment follows from the formal launch of our global regulation and investigations practice earlier in the year, which connects over 600 of our lawyers to assist clients in navigating competition, financial services, anti-bribery and corruption, sanctions and tax issues around the world.”

Klaus von Gierke, Head of Hamburg at Norton Rose Fulbright commented: “We are pleased to welcome Maxim Kleine to our Hamburg office, where he will be joining a dynamic team.

“Germany is becoming established amongst the key European centres for antitrust litigation and we are certain there are manifold opportunities for Maxim to help expand our business locally, at a time when we are seeing an increased emphasis by the European Commission and national governments on encouraging private enforcement of competition law before national courts.”

Maxim Kleine commented: “Personally, I am excited both to be changing cities and to start working in one of the world’s leading competition practices, with a focus on cross border matters. I look forward to helping further develop the German and wider global team’s offering in behavioural competition and litigation matters”.

Norton Rose Fulbright’s competition practice has over 50 partners and close to 150 lawyers globally. It is also one of the major pillars of Norton Rose Fulbright’s recently launched regulation and investigations group which provides a global service across jurisdictions, industry sectors, and across regulatory fronts, enabling the practice to advise clients on managing risk, including multi-jurisdictional investigations and compliance matters.