International law firm Greenberg Traurig has recruited five real estate lawyers from NautaDutilh for its Dutch real estate practice group, including the head of the five-strong team, David van Dijk.
The move is part of the US-based legal services group's strategy to further strengthen its position in the Netherlands and Europe.
Van Dijk will lead Greenberg Traurig's Dutch real estate practice group from Amsterdam and London. He is one of the Netherlands' most prominent real estate lawyers, having headed the real estate practice group at NautaDutilh and been a member of the firm's steering committee for a number of years.
Van Dijk is ranked in Tier 1 by Chambers & Partners in the category 'Real Estate - The Netherlands' and is 'highly recommended' for transactional work. He specialises in commercial real estate, with an emphasis on investments, investment funds, project development, asset management, property finance, as well as real estate related litigation. He is also a member of the President's Panel of the Dispute Resolution Services of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).
Also switching from NautaDutilh together with Van Dijk are Coco van Zuiden, Barbara Klootwijk, Simone Wijngaard and Annahita Mazaherinejad.
As part of its expansion drive, Greenberg Traurig recently also recruited prominent finance and mergers & acquisition teams from Loyens & Loeff and Allen & Overy, including Bas Vletter, Herald Jongen, Sabine Schoute and Lilian Welling-Steffens.
Commenting on the latest additions, Richard Rosenbaum, executive chairman of Greenberg Traurig, said: 'We have known David for a long time, working on opposite sides of large transactions. We are extremely pleased with his arrival and that of the rest of his team. Greenberg Traurig is known worldwide for its strong international real estate practice, in the US, the Middle East and Asia, as well as in Europe.
'With this real estate team and the recent expansions of the Finance and M&A practice groups, with which the real estate practice group works in an integrated manner, we are able to continue to offer our clients what they expect from us internationally for the next decade.'
Van Dijk said: 'I am looking forward to the switch to Greenberg Traurig. The enormous energy of the firm and the drive of global leadership, the international scope and the typical American "can do" mentality, all of this perfectly matches our ambition for the coming decade and the needs of our clients. As a team, we can look back on a wonderful period at NautaDutilh, in which we built up one of the strongest real estate practices in the Netherlands together. From Greenberg Traurig we will now continue with this at an international level.'
Greenberg Traurig Amsterdam is an integrated part of Greenberg Traurig, an international law firm with more than 2,200 lawyers, tax specialists and civil-law notaries, working from 40 offices worldwide.