Cologne Office of Norton Rose Vieregge switches to CMS Hasche Sigle

Law firm CMS Hasche Sigle and the Cologne office of Norton Rose Vieregge will merge at the beginning of 2005. With a total of 420 lawyers, of whom 155 are partners, at ten German and five foreign locations this merger will make CMS Hasche Sigle the second largest law firm in Germany. It will also strengthen the firm's presence in the commercial stronghold of North Rhine-Westphalia.

The new CMS Hasche Sigle office in Cologne enjoys an excellent reputation, particularly in its core areas of Mergers&Acquisitions, private equity, banking, insurance, intellectual property, media and telecommunications and employment. Our new colleagues from Cologne have a strong international tradition and will contribute their long-standing professional contacts, particularly in the Netherlands, Italy, France, Belgium and the USA, to the CMS network. Their clients include both German and international groups, insurance companies, financial institutions and international medium-sized companies and the public sector.

Cornelius Brandi, managing partner of CMS Hasche Sigle, described the merger with the Cologne office as "a great asset to our firm both in professional and personal terms. With these two successful offices in Duesseldorf and Cologne we are now strategically ideally placed to serve our clients throughout Germany."

"The very positive reactions of our clients to the first press reports vindicate our decision to join CMS Hasche Sigle. We look forward to starting the new year together," said Dr Herbert Wiehe, managing partner of the Cologne office.


Contact CMS Hasche Sigle:
Cornelius Brandi, Managing Partner
Tel.: 030 / 203 60-156
E-mail: Cornelius.Brandi@cms-hs.com

Dr. Herbert Wiehe, Managing Partner Köln
Tel.: 0221 / 7716- 228



Background (Status January 2005):

CMS Hasche Sigle is one of the leading German law firms with more than 420 lawyers. It covers the entire area of commercial law and provides legal advice to major German and international companies from a wide spectrum of industry.

CMS Hasche Sigle operates at all the major business centres. It has offices in Berlin, Cologne, Duesseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Leipzig, Munich, Stuttgart, Chemnitz, Dresden, Brussels, Belgrade, Moscow, Prague and Shanghai.

CMS Hasche Sigle is a partnership of lawyers and tax consultants; for register details / list of partners see www.cms-hs.com .

CMS Hasche Sigle is a member of CMS, an alliance of leading European law firms. With over 1,900 lawyers and tax consultants and around 3,700 support staff we serve our clients at 56 commercial centres in 24 countries in and outside Europe.

Our offices in central and eastern Europe and China provide our clients with a stepping stone into some of the world's most important growth markets.

For further information on CMS Hasche Sigle see www.cms-hs.com and on the CMS alliance see www.cmslegal.com .