Debevoise & Plimpton LLP has advised Exponent Private Equity on its second fund, Exponent Private Equity Partners II, LP, which closed on 17 January with commitments of £805 million.

Exponent Private Equity is an independent investment business dedicated to UK private equity and was founded in 2004 by Richard Campin, Chris Graham, Hugh Richards and Tom Sweet-Escott.

The Debevoise team was led by partner Geoffrey Kittredge with tax partners Richard Ward in London and Peter F.G. Schuur in New York.

Debevoise & Plimpton LLP is a leading international law firm, representing a wide range of clients around the world. Founded in 1931, the firm has offices in New York, Washington, D.C., London, Paris, Frankfurt, Moscow, Hong Kong and Shanghai. The firm now has over 670 lawyers.

Willkie Farr has announced that, effective 1 January 08, Hillel Jacobson has become a tax partner in the New York office.

Mr Jacobson was admitted in 2000 and educated at Columbia University School of Law.

Taj has hired Michel Aujean, former Director of Tax Analysis and Policy at European Commission. After 32 years spent at the European Commission, Michel Aujean has joined Taj, a leading French law firm and member of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.

Aujean will create a new “tax planning and corporate strategy” practice group at Taj, responsible for steering the Firm’s research in legal and tax matters.

The law firm Luther Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft mbH is the latest member of Taxand, a leading international network of independent tax advisory and law firms with very strong tax capabilities.

Development of the tax side of the business will be started by the Frankfurt attorney-at-law and tax consultant Ulrich Siegemund, who will begin work as a partner at Luther on February 1, 2008, spearheading the building up of its tax advisory services. He will be accompanied by a team of eight to ten further tax specialists who will soon be starting work at Luther, covering all important aspects of tax law. The full-service law firm intends to further expand its tax services considerably in the future.

“With Ulrich Siegemund we have succeeded not only in recruiting a proven tax specialist, but also winning back an old fellow”, explains Dr. Stefan Kraus, Managing Partner at Luther. “Siegemund was with us until 2002 (when the firm was known under the name Andersen Luther), working at the same time as a partner in the tax department of Arthur Andersen, so that we know each other very well and have a good deal of respect for one another.”

Siegemund, who has been working as a partner at Deloitte & Touche since 2002, has been specialising in the field of international transactions, including real estate transactions for foreign investors (”inbound business”).

Taxand was established in 2005 as a network of premier independent tax firms from countries around the world who share a common vision of delivering seamless and responsive service to local and international clients. Only one member is allowed to join the network from each country and in Germany this is Luther. Taxand currently has member firms in 41 countries with a total of 1,800 tax experts, of whom more
than 300 are partners.

The firm Luther Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft mbH employs approximately 260 attorneys-at-law and tax consultants in Germany and operates in all economically relevant fields of legal and tax consulting, with its own offices at 13 German locations, as well as in Ankara, Brussels, Budapest, Istanbul, Shanghai and Singapore. Its clients include medium-sized enterprises and large corporations, as well as the public sector. Luther is part of the PMLG international group of law firms (Pinsent Masons Luther Group) and is the German member of Taxand, a worldwide network of independent tax firms.