曾在曾在美国霍金•豪森律师事务所工作七年的高级顾问律师于宏威已于近日作为合伙人加入方达律师事务所。同时，方达的两位高级顾问缪斌律师和李风华律师亦晋升为合伙人。三位新合伙人中，于律师和李律师在其深圳办公室工作。

于律师的执业专长包括私募资本和风险投资交易、兼并与收购、资本市场、外商直接投资以及各类跨境交易。他同时具有中国及美国纽约州律师资格。

李风华律师擅长处理涉及复杂交易的争议，其主要代表大型跨国公司通过诉讼或仲裁处理与中国相关的争议，包括合资、专业责任、证券市场虚假陈述、不良贷款、债权清偿以及重组和清算。李律师于2003年9月加入方达。

缪斌律师在代表跨国集团及中国企业处理因公司并购、公司治理、专业人员责任而引发的纠纷以及商事仲裁方面有广泛的经验。缪律师于2009年加入方达上海办公室，之前他曾在英国高伟绅律师事务所工作六年。

三位新合伙人的任命标志着方达律师事务所在继续加强其在争议解决业务领域及提升其华南市场地位的决心。

It is as part of its expansion plan for Southern China that Fangda Partners has recently grown its partner ranks with one lateral hire and two promotions.

New partner Victor Yu (pictured) joined the firm, the winner of the 2010 ALB Shanghai Law Firm of the Year award, from Hogan & Hartson, where he was a counsel and had practised for more than seven years. His practice focuses mainly on private equity and venture capital transactions.

Yu is among several people who have left Hogan's China offices prior to the Hogan Lovells merger. He cited that he had been contemplating this move for a long time and the merger happened to provide him with a good time to leave.

Fangda's two counsels, Benjamin Miao and Frank Li, have been admitted to partnership. Miao, who joined the firm's Shanghai office from Clifford Chance in 2009, and Li, who joined in 2003 in Shenzhen, are both experienced in corporate and commercial disputes.

The new additions to the partnership reflect Fangda's plan to speed up its development in South China, as Yu and Li join partners Luo Ke and Dixon Zhang in the Shenzhen office, which was opened in 2001.

Shenzhen: legal industry in numbers
* 330 firms
* 5,800 lawyers
* 27 offices of Beijing firms
* 7 offices of Shanghai firms
* 2008 total revenue: RMB2.2bn 
"Shenzhen not only has large corporations such as Huawei, ZTE and Ping An but also is home to a great number of fast-growing SMEs. It's a city that also attracts a significant volume of private equity and venture capital investments," said Yu. "However, these companies are relatively underserved by the local legal profession and the local legal industry is still underdeveloped in many ways. So we've decided to strengthen our presence here and take a bigger piece of the action."

Yu also joins a long list of partners and lawyers leaving international firms for local firms. "International firms are mainly advising on China-related cross-border offshore issues, and the competition in that segment is very fierce. However, among all the domestic firms, only a handful of them can really compete for mandates on top-end transactions.  At a leading domestic platform, I can have more potential to reach out to a larger clientele group and work on a wider range of transactions and projects," Yu said. ALB

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