EU: Former Shearman competition partner joins Quinn in Brussels

A leading antitrust partner is the latest in a string of key lateral hires made by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan in Europe, while the firm’s 2017 partner promotions are dominated by the United States.

With just one of its new partner promotions in London, and the other 12 falling across the firm’s New York, Washington, DC, Los Angeles and San Francisco offices, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan continues to focus on European growth with key lateral hires.

Today the firm announced the addition of competition and regulatory partner Trevor Soameswho was recently at Shearman & Sterling in Brussels.

After beginning his legal career at Linklaters in London, Soames was instrumental in building Norton Rose’s (now Norton Rose Fulbright) antitrust practice in 1990, going on to launch that firm’s Brussel’s antitrust practice in 1993. He later founded and was managing partner of Howrey’s Brussels office where he was instrumental in cementing the firm’s position as one of the top four leading practices in Belgium, poaching six competition lawyers from Clifford Chancein the process, before the firm’s ultimate global demise in 2011.

From Howrey, Soames went on rebuild Shearman’s Brussels antitrust practice, which he left in October this year to provide specialist competition litigation and advocacy services via his own company SoamesAntitrust.

In a statement, Quinn’s Brussels and Hamburg managing partner Nadine Herrmann said that Soames’ addition was a “transformative step” for the Brussels and wider European competition practices.

Speaking to CDR, Soames announced his clear intentions for the Brussels practice: “I’m joining Quinn Emanuel to work with Nadine and the team to build a major, leading antitrust practice in Brussels,” in which his arrival was “just the first step”.

Bringing with him a significant amount of client work, including that of US company Qualcommwhich was levied with charges following an investigation by the European Commission, which suggested the telecommunications hardware supplier may have participated in exclusivity payments and predatory pricing which forced its competitor Icera out of the market; charges which Qualcomm has fought. His other clients have included Samsung Electronics, Microsoft and bank Credit Suisse in its Swiss Franc LIBOR and credit derivatives investigation.

“I have no doubt that on the Quinn Emanuel platform I’m going to build a very substantial Brussels practice which is going to succeed big and will succeed quickly,” he added.

Full Content: CDR News

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