International legal practice Osborne Clarke has made two partner promotions and appointed a new legal director in its Bristol office.

The new partners will be Chris Yeo, a specialist in advising institutional investors on private equity transactions and infrastructure projects with a focus on the energy and utilities sector; and Craig McCarthy, a regulatory litigator and expert in public procurement and interventions from regulators, who acts for a wide range of clients and is recognised for his expertise in the energy and utilities, transport, and defence sectors. 

The new legal director is Victoria Gwynedd-Jones, an experienced, technical lawyer advising on a wide range of high value commercial transactions including procurements, outsourcings, and routes to market, and providing practical advice on complex contractual provisions. She is also Osborne Clarke's commercial knowledge lawyer.

Osborne Clarke, which has more than 600 people at its offices in Temple Quay, has appointed a total of seven new partners and three legal directors across its three UK offices in London, Reading and Bristol.

Peter Clough, partner and head of Osborne Clarke's Bristol office, said: "I'm very pleased to welcome Chris and Craig into the partnership and to congratulate our new legal director Victoria on her promotion. Their dedication and strong leadership in supporting our clients and colleagues has really driven our business performance. I look forward to seeing the excellent impact they will make as future leaders at OC."

The firm has also made a number of international partner promotions as of 1st January 2021: Robert Hunter, an international arbitration expert, Till-Manuel Saur, a venture capital specialist in the technology, media and communications and financial services sectors and Rouven Siegemund, a corporate law specialist across the technology, media communications and energy and utilities sectors, who all joined the partnership in Germany. 

Meanwhile Coen Barneveld Binkhuysen, an expert in commercial contracting with a focus on the technology, media and communication sectors, was also promoted to the partnership in The Netherlands. Lucie Mongin-Archambeaud, a specialist in business crime, ethics, litigation and crisis management was promoted in France and employment law specialist Arjun Paleri was promoted to partner at BTG Legal, Osborne Clarke's Indian relationship firm.

Alongside the promotions, Osborne Clarke is sharing its most recent Gender Pay Gap Report, with data from April 2020. This is the firm's fourth year of reporting gender, ethnicity and partner pay gaps. 

Ray Berg, UK managing partner at Osborne Clarke, commented: "We've published our report at the same time as our promotions, because while we celebrate our incremental achievements – promoting at least 40 per cent women into the partnership during the last three years – we also recognise the broader picture remains largely unchanged. Over the last year, we've doubled down on our commitment to create a more diverse and inclusive firm.

"One of the key improvements we've made is to establish our new governance board, the diversity champions forum, chaired by a member of our executive board. They're working closely with our expanded diversity and inclusion team to accelerate change over the next four years. We have also created a gender task force to tackle the pay gap, are undertaking an independent review of our recruitment practices, and will be publishing our race and gender action plans this year."