In what has otherwise been a relatively subdued week for City laterals, Paul Hastings, Reed Smith and Mayer Brown have bolstered their London partner ranks with financial regulatory, intellectual property (IP) and finance hires respectively.
Paul Hastings continued its recruitment spree with the hire, announced today (11 June), of partner Arun Srivastava from Baker McKenzie, where he spent more than 22 years and headed its financial services regulatory group. He has also spent a year with the Financial Services Authority on secondment between 1999 and 2000.
Srivastava will now lead Paul Hastings’ London regulatory and fintech payments practice.
The hire comes as the firm looks to expand its London offering, having recently made two headline hires in the form of Linklaters’ M&A heavyweight Roger Barron and private equity star Anu Balasubramanian from DLA Piper.
Seth Zachary, chair of Paul Hastings, said: ‘Arun is one of the leading financial regulatory lawyers in London and will enhance our capabilities across our finance, fintech and payments, funds and transactional practices. It is central to our growth strategy in London that we attract the finest lawyers in their specialisms, and Arun’s practice and pedigree in the regulatory space will be extremely helpful for us.’
Meanwhile, Pittsburgh-bred Reed Smith has hired Howard Womersley Smith as a partner in its London IP, tech and data practice from Cambridge tech law firm Taylor Vinters. He was previously a partner and head of fintech and data at that firm since 2015, acting for financial services providers on the customer and supply sides, as well as advising clients on data protection and GDPR compliance.
He had previously worked in-house at COLT Telecom and Standard Chartered Bank, where he was global head of legal and compliance for commercial and tech matters.
Cynthia O’Donoghue, head of international information technology at Reed Smith, said: ‘Howard brings with him a great depth of knowledge on current issues such as GDPR, as well as a true specialism in fintech and financial services which align perfectly with our sector focus at Reed Smith. Our IP, tech and data practice continues to experience a growing demand from clients across the global network.’
For its part, Mayer Brown is understood to have hired Fried Frank London finance head Stuart Brinkworth (pictured) to its City bench. Brinkworth joined Fried Frank from Hogan Lovells in 2015, tasked with building debt fund relationships with clients in London and supporting the firm’s private equity practice.
North of the border, TLT hired banking and finance partner Douglas Gourlay from Weighmans, where he led the UK real estate finance practice.
Mayer Brown also announced two US hires from Morgan Lewis aimed at bolstering the firm’s offering to Japanese clients. Satoru Murase joins the firm’s New York corporate and securities practice. He advises on a range of M&A, litigation and finance matters, having also acted on employment and government relations matters.
Yoshihide Ito, who specialises in international trade policy, economic trade sanctions and trade disputes, will join Mayer Brown’s Washington DC government and global trade practice.
Philip Brandes, co-leader of Mayer Brown’s corporate and securities practice, said: ‘As Japanese companies navigate global markets, they seek lawyers well-versed in cross-border investment, litigation and regulatory matters. Satoru and Yoshi check all the boxes.’
King & Spalding hired Marc-Olivier Langlois to its trial and global disputes practice in Paris from Hughes Hubbard & Reed, where he was co-chair of the firm’s construction disputes group.
Langlois is a member of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) task force on maximising the probative value of witness evidence, and has acted on commercial arbitrations, pharmaceutical licencing and defence contracts.
In Asia, Orrick recruited at the expense of Dentons as Sarah Zeng joined the firm’s private equity practice in Beijing. Zeng had been managing partner of Denton’s Beijing office, and has previously worked in-house as general counsel of Chinese engine manufacturer Weichai Power. Zeng becomes the 18th partner to join Orrick’s global M&A practice since 2016, and the fourth in China in the past year.
Dentons meanwhile has secured an addition of its own, with the firm bringing in Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) shared operations director Lisa Sewell as its new UK and Middle East managing director. Sewell had spent ten years at RBS, having also worked as head of bank-wide simplification, before leading a team of 7,500 across the UK, Poland and India.