Niels Dejean will join the Paris office on November 4 2002 with two tax associates, Christophe Delriue and Yann Grolleaud. The group is joining from Veil Jourde La Garanderie.
The hires will give Shearman & Sterling six tax lawyers in the Paris office which will make it better able to compete on M&A projects, according to Peter Blessing, head of the firm's international tax practice.
"We are extremely pleased to have Niels and his team on board. Our immediate intention is to get the benefit of a larger group that can penetrate the M&A and capital market sectors better. I think that you need around seven lawyers for that. This gives us six in total and I wouldn't say we're definitely looking for more. We'll see what they decide when the new team is assimilated," Blessing said.
Dejean has experience across a number of areas of tax including M&A, tax litigation and transfer pricing.
The tax practice had been looking for a new partner for some time and approached Dejean several months ago. Dejean, who worked at Ernst & Young before joining Veil seven years ago, was attracted to the idea of returning to a global firm.
He said: " They called me, the project was interesting and it made sense. The firm has a very good reputation and I'm very excited about joining. Though clients may not directly want an international network, it is definitely easier to serve them with one."
Dejean is expecting many of his clients, which have included Coca-Cola, AstraZeneca Group and Eurazeo to follow him to Shearman & Sterling.
Dejean's move was not related to the departure of name partner Andrew Armfelt in August this year. Veil will be left with two tax partners and, as yet, has not made any decisions about finding a replacement.
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