John Fisher Tomas Rua Covington & Burling LLP has strengthened its mergers and acquisitions group on both coasts with the additions of two former Freshfields LLP tech M&A partners.

John Fisher, a Palo Alto, California, attorney who most recently served as co-head of Freshfields' U.S. technology and life sciences M&A group, will co-lead Covington's technology industry group with current leader Louise Nash, the firm announced Monday.

The other new partner, Tomas Rua, will be based in the firm's New York office. Fisher and Rua spoke with Law360 Pulse Tuesday on their new roles.

Fisher said the top reason he moved his practice is because of how heavily regulated technology is now, and how Covington is unmatched in its mastery of regulations that affect technology companies.

"Marrying our M&A platform with that mastery of regulations is really going to create a product that no other firm in Silicon Valley can offer clients," Fisher said.

Fisher and Rua advise technology companies on complex domestic and cross-border merger and acquisition transactions. Their work includes public and private company acquisitions, carve‑outs, asset transactions, strategic minority investments and joint ventures, especially those involving emerging technologies, artificial intelligence, digital platforms and data‑driven business models, the firm said. Both also counsel clients and boards on corporate governance and fiduciary duty issues.

Fisher said his immediate goals as co-leader include getting to know his partners and the platform a bit better before putting into practice the second phase of his plan.

"Good M&A lawyers curate talent," he said. "They figure out who at the firm is a really good match with certain clients, and they introduce them and play matchmaker. And so, part of what I want to do as co-lead is begin to tell a story that resonates with technology companies in a way that I don't think has been told yet. For life sciences M&A, for financial services M&A, I think our firm does a great job of telling that story. But we have - I think - the top technology capabilities, and I just want to sing the praises and tell the story a bit differently than it's been told before, in a way that resonates with technology clients."

Rua said he was drawn to Covington due to positive experiences partnering with the firm as co-counsel on various complex and highly regulated recent tech M&A deals.

"We just had a tremendous experience with the firm, both from a substantive perspective in terms of the expertise that Covington was positioned to offer, but also just from a cultural perspective and just a great fit of feeling like we really gelled with the attorneys that are here, which gave us a lot of confidence and assurance as we were coming into this," Rua said.

In 2024, women's healthcare-focused company Organon, advised by Covington, announced that it would purchase Freshfields-led Dermavant, a biopharmaceutical company, for an aggregate amount of up to $1.2 billion. Rua was one of the leaders of the Freshfields team, and Catherine Dargan, chair of Covington's corporate practice and co-chair of the firm's M&A practice, played a key role on the Covington team.

Dargan said Fisher and Rua will further support the firm's ability to help clients navigate an increasingly sophisticated tech deal landscape.

"They have established strong reputations for advising technology clients on some of the industry's most intricate and strategically important transactions and will expand the work we already do with leading technology companies," she said in a statement.

The duo led multiple transactions for Uber, including Uber's acquisition of Getir's delivery portfolio in Turkey, which Uber announced on Feb. 9. Their other high-profile deals included Salesforce's acquisition of Qualified, announced Dec. 17, and Atlassian on its $610 million acquisition of The Browser Company of New York, announced Sept. 4, according to the firm.

Rua said he's looking forward to continuing his and Fisher's "bicoastal delivery model" at Covington.

"Four of the five largest tech companies have their legal departments and their corporate development departments sitting in both New York and on the West Coast," he said. "And there's a really nice symmetry to be found between having lawyers sitting in both places. We find that really lends itself extremely well to just delivering the best product possible."

Before joining Freshfields over five years ago, Fisher was a partner at Sidley Austin LLP, while Rua was an associate at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP prior to Freshfields. Fisher is a graduate of Harvard University and Columbia Law School. Rua is a graduate of Yale Law School, and has a bachelor's degree from Yale University and an MBA from the Yale School of Management, according to the firm.

"We wish John and Tomas all the best," a Freshfields spokesperson told Law360 Pulse.