BNT Attorneys Riga Managing Partner Theis Klauberg has announced that he will be taking his team from that pan-Baltic firm on January 1, 2019, to launch an independent firm, Klauberg Baltics, leaving behind former senior associates and now partners Henning Jensen and Karlis Svikis to lead BNT Riga going forward.
Klauberg Baltics will have offices in Riga, Vilnius, and Tallinn.
“The move away from BNT is the result of my decision to focus on the Baltic States, Klauberg told CEE Legal Matters, "which was incompatible with the BNT approach to cover several countries in CEE as well as Germany. We feel that being outside of an international network makes sense in the Baltic states. It is a unique situation in the Baltic states, because we don’t have international brands here and the Baltic states have always been blank spots for international law firms. That is one of the reasons why we decided to leave BNT, and start an independent law firm only in these three countries.”
The new law firm will focus on the Baltics and target German-speaking clients. “We focus on the business between German speaking countries — Germany and Austria and Switzerland — and the three Baltic states,” Klauberg explains. "We are just geared towards that market.” And Klauberg notes that Germany by far is the biggest investor in the Baltics. “The largest number of investments are coming from Germany," he says, "and we expect that to become even more, because Germany and Austria are doing very well. We see our clients relocating production to the Baltic states and shifting work to the Baltic states and they are all very successful with that. We expect other companies to do the same.”
The entire Klauberg Baltics team consists of 15 people in all three offices, which will start their operations in January 1, 2019. The Riga office will be managed by Klauberg, who is also CEO of Klauberg Baltics. The Tallinn office will be led by German Attorney Max Wood, who moves to Estonia from Latvia. Sigita Sriubaite, who was part of BNT Riga in 2003-2005, rejoins Klauberg as Managing Partner of the Vilnius office and as CFO of Klauberg Baltics.
BNT Attorneys continues to operate as before in Vilnius and Tallin. In Riga, the office will provide legal services under the name BNT Attorneys in CEE/ Jensen & Svikis Legal. The Latvian team will also be supported by Frank Heemann, Managing Partner at the Lithuanian office of BNT.
Heemann is optimistic about the new leadership in Riga, declaring: “I have a very positive look at working with Henning and Karlis. I worked with them for many years. Of course we would not have made this adjustment if we did not think it was not right thing to do — with two new partners’ own networks and new ideas we will be successful in the future." He adds, “However, I am sad that Theis decided to leave, but of course we accepted his decision and wish him good luck."
