The Netherlands’ Supreme Court Justice Coen Drion has become the nation’s first Justice to leave the Dutch court to join an international firm, joining US firm Jones Day.
Drion will join Jones Day’s disputes practice as a partner based in Amsterdam after four years of working as a judge in the civil division of the Supreme Court of the Netherlands. He officially leaves the Supreme Court on the 1 September 2015.
Before his time at the Dutch Supreme Court, Drion was in private practice, focusing on contract and liability law, and has experience in competition and IT law. In 2008, he was appointed by the Enterprise Chamber of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal to investigate events at the now defunct Belgian-Dutch financial services group Fortis, which was nationalised and partly sold to French bank BNP Paribas.
Drion, in 1992, co-founded Dutch firm Kennedy Van der Laan, having previously worked at local firm Van Doorne & Sjollema – which later merged into Trenité van Doorne – where he specialised in international contract and tort law.
‘When I decided to become a private practitioner again, Jones Day was the obvious choice for me,’ said Drion. ‘I was particularly attracted to its approach of serving clients as one firm worldwide, without origination credits or other client service distractions.’
Jones Day’s global disputes head, Tim Cullen added: ‘One of our major strengths is our comprehensive international footprint with lawyers qualified before jurisdictions throughout the world, which involves having litigators on the ground who practice before the domestic courts of their home jurisdiction. As the seventh global disputes lawyer in our Amsterdam office, he adds even more depth to our significant capabilities there, and we look forward to his arrival in September.’
jaishree.kalia@legalease.co.uk
