Holman Fenwick Willan has welcomed back veteran aerospace lawyer Peter Coles as a partner in Hong Kong from Clyde & Co, where he headed the aviation practice for the Asia-Pacific region.

Coles left HFW to join Clyde in 2018. Prior to joining HFW for his first stint in 2011, he was a partner at the erstwhile Barlow Lyde & Gilbert, which merged with Clyde that year. Coles began his legal career at Beaumont & Son in London and Singapore.

With clients encompassing international airlines, operators, maintenance, repair and operations companies, and private aviation companies, Coles advises on contentious and non-contentious aviation issues, including regulatory, employment, insurance, commercial and transactional, contingency planning and emergency response, investigations and prosecutions, multi-jurisdictional claims and disputes, enforcement, insolvency and bankruptcy proceedings, and parting out and end-of-life.

His hiring comes barely days after HFW saw Singapore aviation partner Terence Liew depart for Clyde.

With Coles’ return, HFW now has 19 partners in Hong Kong.