Law firm King & Spalding’s international trade practice has continued its recruitment drive of former European Commission (EC) officials with the appointment of Hervé Jouanjean.

Jouanjean held several senior positions at the EC over an 18-year period, including director in the directorate-general for trade, deputy head of the permanent delegation of the commission in Geneva to international organisations, and deputy secretary-general of the EC in charge of inter-institutional relations.

He also served as the director-general for budget, where he managed the regulatory framework for the budget and reported on budget implementation.

Jouanjean left the EC in 2014 to join Fidal as a counsel, where he over the last five years has been in charge of European affairs.

Based in Brussels and Paris, Jouanjean is the latest former senior trade official to have joined the firm in recent years, following the hire of Rambod Behboodi, former counsellor in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules division, Hannes Welge, former hearing officer for trade proceedings at the EC, and Hamid Mamdouh, former WTO secretariat as director of the trade in services and investment division. All three are based in the firm’s Geneva office.

King & Spalding says Jouanjean will work closely with Brussels-based international trade specialist Marie-Sophie Dibling, who joined the firm in June as a partner, also from Fidal.

“Hervé has more than 30 years of experience working in senior roles at the very heart of the EC so his knowledge of the inner workings of the EC is of the highest standard,” says Steve Orava, chair of the firm’s international trade group.

“With the addition of Hervé, we now have on-the-ground trade experts in Brussels, Geneva and London, which are key hubs for trade in Europe and globally,” adds Daniel Crosby, office managing partner in Geneva. “International trade remains one of the biggest global economic and political subjects of concern to our clients. Our continued expansion ensures that our clients have seasoned trade specialists to advise them on their most significant trade issues.”