Commenting, Allen & Overy senior partner David Morley said: "Our decision to launch in Australia underlines the increasing importance of Australia in the global and Asia-Pacific economies. We see significant opportunities for high-end, cross-border M&A and finance work in the private and public sectors, particularly in the energy, mining and natural resources sectors."
"As Australia develops closer ties with its major trading partners, especially across the Asia-Pacific region, and as Australian banks and corporates continue to expand globally there is growing demand for legal advice that can seamlessly support that growth around the world. Our global network puts us in the perfect position to be able to do just that."
Analysis of the local market indicates there is space in the Australian legal sector for a smaller high-end law firm that is integrated into a broad global network. The core practices will be in energy, mining and natural resources; finance; infrastructure; investment funds; M&A; private equity; tax; and telecoms, media and technology (TMT).
Thomas Brown, Allen & Overy Asia Pacific managing partner, added: "Our expansion into Australia not only provides opportunities to develop new client relationships, it also enables us to service the needs of our existing clients in another key market and adopt a fully integrated approach to the Asia-Pacific region."
"This move also improves access to the deep pool of high quality lawyers that exists in the Australian legal market, making this the logical next step in our plans to expand our global network."
The founding partners of Allen & Overy's Australia practice, which is expected to be up and running by 1 March, will be:
Sydney office:
Jason Denisenko, partner in the Corporate/Funds and Financial Products practice
Angela Flannery, partner in the Banking practice
Grant Fuzi, partner in the Banking practice
Sonia Goumenis, partner in the Banking/Structured Capital Markets practice
Jason Huinink, partner in the Banking practice
Barry Irwin, partner in the Corporate/Energy & Resources practice
Aaron Kenavan, partner in the Corporate/M&A practice
Grant Koch, partner in the Corporate/Private Equity practice
Michael Parshall, partner in the Corporate/M&A practice
Karolina Popic, partner in the Banking/Structured Capital Markets practice
Michael Reede, partner in the Corporate/Private Equity practice
Chris Robertson, partner in the Banking practice
Andrew Stals, partner in the Corporate/Tax practice
David Wilkie, partner in the Corporate/Funds and Infrastructure practice
Perth office:
Meredith Campion, partner in the Corporate/Energy & Resources practice
Geoff Simpson, partner in the Corporate/Energy & Resources practice
Peter Wilkes, partner in the Corporate/Energy & Resources and also Banking practice
Career opportunities
There will be a number of exciting career opportunities for talented and ambitious lawyers in both our Sydney and Perth offices.
If you are interested in working with Allen & Overy in Australia, please register your details on the careers pages of our website. For general enquiries please email australianrecruitment@allenovery.com.
Media enquiries
For media enquiries please contact Campbell McIlroy, campbell.mcilroy@allenovery.com, on +44 (0)20 3088 2783 in London, Sharon Fung, sharon.fung@allenovery.com, on +852 2974 7091 in Hong Kong, or Fran Boase, fboase@ppr.com.au, on +61 2 9818 9329 in Sydney.