Cleary Gottlieb Elects Ten New Partners and Counsel

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP announced today that it has elected eight partners and two counsel, effective January 1, 2015. The elections will bring the firm’s total worldwide partners to 195 and counsel to 48.

“I am proud to introduce our new partners and counsel, and I congratulate them on their commitment to client service and legal excellence,” said Mark Leddy, the firm’s Managing Partner. “These exceptional men and women exemplify Cleary Gottlieb’s diversity and internationalism. Collectively, they speak English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Hebrew, Mandarin, and Cantonese. Their practice areas cover a broad range of transactional, litigation, and regulatory matters and are truly global in scope.”

The new partners and counsel are resident in the firm’s Hong Kong, London, and New York offices and their broad spectrum of practice areas include capital markets, antitrust and competition, mergers and acquisitions, litigation, enforcement, bankruptcy and restructuring, project finance, intellectual property, and private equity.

The new partners and counsel are:

Adam Brenneman, partner, focuses on international corporate and financial transactions, including capital markets, mergers and acquisitions, restructuring, and financings. He represented Aerostar Airport Holdings in the milestone public-private partnership in connection with the San Juan Luis Muñoz Marin International Airport. He also represented the initial purchasers in the $1.2 billion IPO and $367 million follow-on offering by Maquarie Mexican REIT in 2012 and 2014, respectively, Fintech in its acquisition of a controlling stake in Telecom Argentina, bondholders and DIP Lenders in OGX’s restructuring plan, an ad hoc group of bondholders in Mirabela Nickel’s restructuring and recapitalization, and Alsacia and Express in the restructuring of its senior secured notes through a prepackaged Chapter 11 process.

Meyer Fedida, partner, focuses on U.S. federal tax and related matters, with a particular emphasis on cross-border tax planning and the tax aspects of mergers and acquisitions, private equity, partnerships and joint venture arrangements, and restructurings. He advised Lafarge on tax matters in Lafarge’s €40 billion merger of equals to create LafargeHolcim and provided tax advice on HSBC’s £12.5 billion rights offering. He was previously resident in the London office from 2007 to 2009 and 2011 to 2012.

David Flechner, counsel, focuses on international corporate and financial transactions, with a focus on Latin America. He has represented Brazilian miner Vale and oil major Petrobras on SEC reporting, liability management and financing matters, including Petrobras’ $11 billion bond issuance that was reported as the largest-ever debt offering by an emerging-market company. David also has experience advising issuers and underwriters in high yield bond offerings, SEC-registered and unregistered equity IPOs, follow-ons and rights offerings. He has recently advised Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley on various private and public financing transactions across a range of sectors for Brazilian, Mexican and other Latin American companies. He was resident in the firm’s London office from 2008 to 2011 and in our Paris office in 2011 and 2012.

Paul Gilbert, counsel, focuses on EU and UK competition law, including merger control, anticompetitive agreements, abuse of dominance and sectoral regulation. He has represented clients before the European Commission and the UK Competition and Markets Authority, as well as in litigation before the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal and Court of Appeal. Paul is currently advising Lafarge in connection with its merger with Holcim, Ryanair in connection with its appeal of an order to divest all but 5% of its minority shareholding in Aer Lingus, HCA in a private healthcare market investigation, Metlac in AKZO Nobel’s appeal against the prohibition of AKZO Nobel’s acquisition of sole control of Metlac. He is also involved in other UK market investigations, UK and EU cartel matters, and is counseling Biomet, Blackstone, Goldman Sachs PIA, KKR, and TPG on EU merger control matters relating to the sale of Biomet to Zimmer Holdings for approximately $13.35 billion.

Daniel Ilan, partner, focuses on global intellectual property matters. Daniel is widely recognized as one of the leading IP lawyers in the country. He served as lead outside IP counsel to Nortel Networks in its bankruptcy divestitures, including Nortel’s historic $4.5 billion auction of around 7,000 patents, the largest patent sale ever and a transaction that forever changed perceptions of patent monetization. Daniel has advised Google on numerous matters, including the sales of Motorola’s mobile devices business to Lenovo and “home” business to Arris and the acquisition of Waze and other technology targets. Daniel’s other clients have included América Móvil, Sony, Endurance International Group, the Estate of Roy Lichtenstein, IMS Health, Goldman Sachs, ABB, OpenText, TPG Capital, The Raine Group, Scientific Games, and Warburg Pincus. Daniel is currently resident in the firm’s New York office, and in the past has been resident in the Brussels and Paris offices.

James Langston, partner, focuses on public and private mergers and acquisitions for private equity and other clients. He advised Biomet, Blackstone, Goldman Sachs PIA, KKR, and TPG in the sale of Biomet to Zimmer Holdings for approximately $13.35 billion and Suntory in its $16 billion acquisition of Beam. He also represented Neiman Marcus, TPG, and Warburg Pincus in the $6 billion sale of Neiman Marcus to Ares Management and CPPIB as well as Warburg Pincus and Bausch + Lomb in the $8.7 billion sale of Bausch + Lomb to Valeant.

Adrian Rae Leipsic, partner, focuses his practice on the organization and operation of private investment funds, representing both sponsors and investors in private equity, special situations and other alternative asset vehicles. Adrian has done significant work for TPG, Blackstone and Hillhouse, among others. Adrian recently advised TPG in the formation and subsequent IPO of TPG Specialty Lending, a business development company focused on making loans to middle market companies. He has also advised JP Morgan, Credit Suisse and other global financial institutions on the “bad actor” and other recent amendments to Regulation D.

Ari MacKinnon, partner, focuses on litigation and enforcement matters. He successfully represented Alpha Natural Resources in reaching a comprehensive settlement with the United States Department of Justice resolving potential corporate criminal and civil liability related to the Upper Big Branch Mine Tragedy, won a ruling in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirming the dismissal of antitrust claims brought against client GfK Mediamark Research & Intelligence, and successfully settled a claim brought against the New York City Department of Education on behalf of a pro bono client to secure special education benefits.

Denise Shiu, partner, focuses on corporate and financial transactions, particularly private equity and other mergers and acquisitions transactions in China, as well as the rest of Asia. She represented TPG in the going-private acquisition of Chindex International and many other transactions in China and the rest of Asia. She also represented Whirlpool Corporation in its majority equity investment in Hefei Rongshida Sanyo Electric, the Special Committees of the Boards of Directors of Yongye International, Winner Medical Group and China GrenTech in each company’s going-private transaction, and Qatar Holding in its participation in an investor consortium in the going-private transaction of AsiaInfo-Linkage.

Lisa Vicens, partner, focuses on a broad spectrum of civil litigation and regulatory enforcement matters with a specialty in complex, cross-border issues. Her recent representations include the Crédit Agricole group in litigation arising from the Madoff Ponzi scheme, former members of the Board of Directors of R-G Premier Bank in Puerto Rico in litigation brought by the FDIC, Bank of America in several residential mortgage-backed securities litigations, Overseas Shipholding Group in litigation and enforcement matters related to its bankruptcy, Goldman Sachs in putative antitrust class actions related to certain benchmark rates, and CARBO Ceramics in the successful dismissal of putative securities class action claims. Lisa also has an active pro bono practice, and was a member of the pro bono team that advocated on behalf of Erskine Johnson and succeeded in vacating his wrongful murder conviction after 15 years of dedicated work by the firm.

About Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP

A leading international law firm with 16 offices located in major financial centers around the world, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP has helped shape the globalization of the legal profession for more than 65 years. Cleary Gottlieb has a proven track record for innovation and providing work of the highest quality to meet the needs of clients worldwide.