Gowling Lafleur Henderson has snatched Davit Akman -- a lawyer Gowlings calls a "rising litigation star"-- from rival Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg.
It's the latest high-profile acquisition for Gowlings, which has been attracting a series of lawyers from other firms with large reputations in that last two years.
Mr. Akman is a veteran competition lawyer with a high-impact resume that includes time before the Supreme Court on major cases, including the landmark BCE Inc. case. More recently, he acted for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, which was intervening as the Supreme Court heard Sun-Rype v. Archer Daniels Midland, expected to be one in a series of precedent-setting price-fixing cases.
Last December, Gowlings announced that Derrick Tay, an extremely well-known insolvency lawyer involved in many major cases, was leaving Norton Rose for Gowlings. Earlier that year, Calgary-based David Lefebvre, formerly of Stikeman Elliott LLP, joined Gowlings, bringing his experience of negotiating mega oil deals for massive Chinese companies with him. The firm also boasted the acquisition of Lawrence Cannon, the former foreign affairs minister.