Paul Weiss has hired a pair of partners from Clifford Chance (CC), as the New York firm continues the eye-catching buildout of its London office. 

Christopher Sullivan, who was previously CC’s London head of private equity, has joined the 1,000-lawyer firm alongside finance specialist Taner Hassan. Hassan advises private equity clients on buyout and infrastructure financings and will be head of European leveraged finance at Paul Weiss. 

Sullivan, who joined CC as a trainee in 2006 and became a partner at the firm seven years ago, advises private equity houses, financial sponsors and corporates on leveraged buyouts, acquisitions and disposals, takeovers, mergers, joint ventures, IPOs, restructurings and refinancings. 

He has advised clients including BlackRock, Cinven and Mastercard International and has particular experience in the financial services, consumer goods, tech and healthcare sectors. He also advises on private equity real estate and infrastructure investing.

“Chris is an outstanding addition to our senior bench of private equity partners in London and globally,” said global M&A co-chair Roger Johnson, co-head of Paul Weiss’s London office. “Chris is a leading private equity M&A partner in Europe who holds deep relationships across numerous private equity sponsors. He has acted on some of the largest and most complex transactions in the European market.”

Meantime, Hassan joined CC as a trainee in 2005 and has been a partner at the firm for the past 15 years. He has worked with clients including EQT Equity and EGT Infrastructure as well as Cinven, which he advised on the financing of its acquisition of Restaurant Brands Iberia in 2021. 

“The addition of Taner to our team in London significantly enhances our senior partner bench across multiple sponsors,” said Neel Sachdev, global co-chair of finance and capital markets and co-head of the London office. 

“He is one of the leading sponsor-side financing partners in Europe and has advised private equity sponsors on their most complex cross-border financing transactions in both the European buyout and infrastructure markets for many years. We are thrilled to welcome him to our growing London team.”

Johnson and Sachdev joined Paul Weiss earlier this year as part of an eight-partner private equity raid on Kirkland & Ellis’s London office that saw the firm make a strategic move to practise English law. 

As part of the raid corporate partner William Aitken-Davies moved over from Linklaters, while last week Bloomberg reported that Paul Weiss had also hired Linklaters’ global head of antitrust and foreign investment, Nicole Kar. 

A CC spokesperson commented: “We thank Taner and Chris for their contribution to the firm and wish them the best for the future.”