In a relatively subdued week for the London lateral market, Goodwin Procter and Shoosmiths made the only noteworthy hires in the City.
Goodwin secured a prominent hire to its private equity group, recruiting CMS’ private equity head James Grimwood to its London office. Grimwood has experience in advising on M&A, joint ventures and corporate reorganisations. He has acted on private equity transactions for institutions and management teams.
Goodwin has expanded its London office with significant hires in the past year including private equity partner Carl Bradshaw from Kirkland & Ellis, technology partner Ali Ramadan from Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe and Taylor Wessing’s head of life sciences Malcolm Bates along with partners David Mardle, Tim Worden and Adrian Rainey.
Meanwhile, Shoosmiths has recruited cyber incident response partner Philip Tansley from Keystone Law to its London office. Tansley is experienced in crisis management advice, investigations and advising on regulatory issues arising from cyber incidents. He also a technology litigator and represents clients in court proceedings and arbitrations on issues such as project delays, termination and software licensing.
National head of litigation services Alex Bishop told Legal Business: ‘We have one of the largest data privacy teams. We were looking to bolster our cybercrime offering and our cyber breach and incident response more broadly and bring in someone who had a huge amount of experience in serious cyber breach incidents and mobilising that kind of big scale incident response.’
In a blow to Allen & Overy’s US ambitions, the firm lost asset management partner Marc Ponchione to Debevoise & Plimpton. He joined the firm’s investment management group in Washington DC. Ponchione’s practice is focused on asset management and advice on regulatory and transactional issues, including under the federal securities laws.
Chair of the investment management group David Schwartz commented: ‘There is a growing demand for high quality and sophisticated regulatory advice. Marc’s arrival broadens our capabilities in this area, furthering our reputation for providing high quality, commercial and market-aware and creative advice.’
Finally, DLA Piper hired M&A and private equity partner David Kuo from Milbank in Singapore. Kuo focuses on M&A and private equity transactions in real estate, technology and energy and has experience in advising on cross-broader work in Asia and the US.
DLA’s co-regional managing partner in Asia Li Qiang commented: ‘Singapore is a key strategic office for growth and a hub for our ASEAN offering. David’s experience and market profile, combined with his extensive track record in advising corporate clients, will perfectly complement our global corporate business.’
