Atherton Has Launched In Bangkok

17 December 2012

The full-service firm Atherton has launched in Bangkok, according to Edward J Kelly, a founder of the firm. The firm, which will focus on intellectual property protection, was founded as a partnership between Kelly and John Fotiadis, a former department head of several practice groups at Tilleke & Gibbins in Bangkok. Kelly is a former Tilleke lawyer who recently joined Monterey, California-based LaRiviere, Grubman & Payne. Atherton will retain its relationship with LaRiviere and its sister firm, LGP Asia.

Fotiadis brings extensive transactional and litigation experience, having acted as a commercial trial lawyer in New York and then as a consultant for client litigation, arbitration, mediation and regulatory hearings and investigations in Thailand. As a commercial adviser, his experience includes commercial contracting, energy, international trade, fair competition, IT law, real property and corporate practice.

Kelly organizes and manages high profile criminal raids and prosecutions against criminals engaged in trafficking of illicit goods, including counterfeit goods. He has acted as lead counsel in numerous sensitive investigations and special projects leading to the capture of criminals in some of Southeast Asia’s most notorious criminal prosecutions during the decade. He also leads the fight against human trafficking through a non-profit foundation organized in Phnom Penh called SISHA.

The firm’s third partner is Daniel Q Greif, most recently based in Hong Kong with Coca-Cola’s Pacific Group, where he had responsibility for the company’s trademark and other intellectual property throughout 30 countries in Asia-Pacific. Greif has previously worked for Coca-Cola in the United States, Bangkok, Sydney, and Vienna. At Coca-Cola, Greif set up and implemented numerous intellectual property enforcement programs in countries with significant trademark infringement and counterfeiting issues and was instrumental in getting the Coca-Cola Contour Bottle configuration registered as a trademark in many countries.

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