According to reliable sources requesting anonymity, Paris-based Gide Loyrette Nouel Partners (and long-time CEE veterans) Francois D’Ornano and Karl Hepp de Sevelinges are leaving Gide to join the French law firm Jeantet, with Gide's Budapest and Kyiv offices likely to follow.
D’Ornano, who joined Gide in 1997, specializes in mergers and acquisitions and the financing of real estate projects, as well as in commercial lease law and construction law. He opened and headed the Budapest and Belgrade offices of Gide (the latter of which now operates as independent firm Maric, Malisic & Dostaniche, acting as Gide’s exclusive correspondent in Belgrade). D'Ornano oversees the Budapest office as well as the firm's activities in the Balkans, having created the South-East Europe Group.
Hepp de Sevelinges specializes in corporate/M&A, and advises industrial companies, retail groups, financial institutions and funds in France and across Eastern Europe. He joined Gide in 1999 and opened and managed the firm’s Kyiv office in the Ukraine from 2006-2011, before leaving to briefly take charge of the firm’s New York office (2011-2012).
With the addition of D’Ornano, Hepp de Sevelinges, and — probably — the Gide teams in Kyiv and Budapest, Jeantet is poised to make a grand entrance into CEE. This move follows shortly after Akos Kovach, the former Managing Partner of Gide's Budapest office, left for Hogan Lovells and the team which joined Kyiv from Beiten Burkhardt in January 2014 — including Gide Kyiv Co-Managing Partner Julian Ries — left for Integrites.
When contacted by CEE Legal Matters, D’Ornano, Hepp de Sevelinges, and Gide Loyrette Nouel declined to comment. Jeantet did not respond to several requests for comment.
