Allen & Overy sees strong growth with four new partners across three offices in Germany

Tax specialist Ellen Birkemeyer and patent expert Dr Stephan Neuhaus will join Allen & Overy’s Dusseldorf office, bringing the overall number of partners at the Dusseldorf office from four to six. Stephan Neuhaus will become part of the firm with effect from 1 May 2021, and Ellen Birkemeyer will join later on in the second half of 2021. In addition, Frankfurt-based counsel Dr Udo Olgemoeller (Public Law) and counsel Max Landshut (Corporate/M&A) in the Hamburg office have been promoted to partners, effective 1 May 2021.

Ellen Birkemeyer is a lawyer and tax advisor. She joins Allen & Overy after many years with KPMG AG Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft, where she has been a partner since 2015. She is the leading advisor to Germany’s DAX 30 companies with regard to implementing comprehensive compliance and risk management systems in the field of tax. This includes providing preventive tax law advice of companies and their executive boards. In addition, Ellen has a strong footprint in digitising tax departments and related processes as well as in consulting on organisational structures. By adding Ellen to its partnership, Allen & Overy expands its cross-practice offering of advisory services in the fields of compliance, risk management and internal investigations. This is equally true for (preventive) advice offered to companies and their boards. Moreover, legal tech services which play an important role at Allen & Overy, will see more contributions from the tax practice. Furthermore, Ellen will create momentum for Allen & Overy Consulting.

Dr Stephan Neuhaus joins from Hogan Lovells, where he has been a partner since 2019. He advises on all aspects of patent law and other technical property rights and has extensive experience in litigating patents for international and national clients, especially from the pharmaceutical and chemical industries as well as the life sciences and telecommunications sectors. Stephan coordinates parallel patent infringement and revocation proceedings in the major European countries. He conducts main action infringement proceedings, preliminary injunction proceedings and inspection proceedings at the German district and appellate courts as well as nullity actions at the German Federal Patent Court and the Federal Supreme Court. He will strengthen the successful patent practice led by Dr Joachim Feldges and Dr Jan Ebersohl.

Dr Udo Olgemoeller is the head of Allen & Overy’s public law practice in Germany. He advises comprehensively on all aspects of public commercial law, specializing not only on administrative, environmental and planning law as well as state aid matters. Advising on cross-sector regulatory aspects in the context of corporate/M&A, private equity, real estate and capital markets transactions plays an important role in his service offering. His extensive expertise on foreign trade legislation including investment screening as well as sanctions is key both in deal-related mandates and on a stand-alone basis when it comes to advising on companies’ business models from a regulatory perspective. Udo has been with Allen & Overy since 2012.

Max Landshut is an important pillar of the German corporate/M&A practice and has made a name for himself in the energy and infrastructure sector. He advises international and national companies on all aspects of corporate law with a focus on M&A transactions and joint ventures and has worked on some of the most important transactions in the German energy and infrastructure sector. A particular focus of his work is on renewable energies. Max thus represents growth in a sector, which stands to benefit not only from Germany’s energy transition, but will also gain momentum from international initiatives such as the EU’s Green Deal in years to come. Max’ promotion to partner is a significant move to further strengthen the firm’s M&A advisory offering in Germany. Max started his career at Allen & Overy in 2011.

“By appointing Ellen, Stephan, Udo and Max, we have added four superb lawyers and advisors to our partnership. With them, we are setting sail for further growth in areas that are key to our firm”, said Dr Wolf Bussian, Managing Partner at Allen & Overy in Germany. He went on: “All four of them bring outstanding skills and quality which make them an excellent fit for our firm. I am sure that they will add great value to our advisory offering for our clients. We very much look forward to working with them in our partnership.”