Locke Lord announces that the Atlanta office has added two new attorneys to the Firm’s Corporate Practice Group, bringing significant experience to its transactional capabilities in the energy, technology and telecommunications industries. Longtime Atlanta attorney Joel Cartee has joined Locke Lord as a Partner. He brings a strong background in complex global transactions and has extensive experience in the telecommunications and technology arenas, which adds depth and talent to the Firm’s global Corporate team.

Stamford Law advised Bumitama Agri Ltd. (“Bumitama”) on its initial public offering and listing on the Mainboard of the SGX-ST. Bumitama is a young and fast-growing pure upstream palm oil producer that is based in Indonesia, and its listing – with a market capitalisation of S$1.31 billion – is the first sizeable billion dollar market capitalisation new listing on the SGX-ST in 2012. The offering (excluding the cornerstone shares) was approximately 30.8 times subscribed.

International law firm Eversheds has acted as local counsel and antitrust counsel in advising Alimentation Couche-Tard, the largest independent convenience store operator in North America on the $2.8 Billion purchase of transport fuel retailer, Statoil Fuel & Retail from Statoil.

Steptoe is pleased to announce that Pablo Bentes, a native of Brazil who most recently served six years as a legal officer in the Appellate Body Secretariat of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, has joined the firm’s International Trade and International Regulatory Compliance practice groups as a director.  Mr. Bentes will reside in the firm’s Washington office, traveling regularly to Brazil and other parts of Latin America in connection with Steptoe’s expanding practice in Brazil and South America more generally.

Cozen O’Connor announced that Michael D. Klein will join the firm’s energy, environmental & public utility practice group, splitting his time between the firm’s Washington, D.C., and Harrisburg, Pa., offices. He joins from Dewey & LeBoeuf where he was a partner and practiced for more than 20 years. Also joining the energy, environmental & public utility practice group are former Dewey & LeBoeuf associates Ahren S. Tyron, who will join the firm as a Member, and Joshua L. Belcher who will join as an associate.

DLA Piper today announced that prominent lawyers Neal Aizenstein, Andrew Weil and Michael Legamaro have joined the firm in Chicago as partners. Aizenstein and Weil join the firm’s Corporate and Finance practice, while Legamaro joins the Tax practice. The team joins DLA Piper from Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, where Aizenstein also served as Chicago office managing partner.