As the demand for criminal defence lawyers intensifies amid increased scrutiny from regulators, Allen & Overy has bolstered its firepower with the hire of white-collar crime partner Eve Giles from Kingsley Napley.
Giles has been a partner at Kingsley Napley since 2009 and will become A&O’s sixth corporate crime partner later this year, joining head of corporate and commercial litigation Lawson Caisley and partners Jonathan Hitchin, Calum Burnett, Arnondo Chakrabarti and Alice Englehart.
Commenting on this latest strategic hire, Lawson Caisley told Legal Business: ‘Eve has spent her whole professional life working on pure white-collar defence cases, across the table from key regulators including the SFO and the FCA. We know Eve well, having worked with her on several cases, and she was top of our list when we were looking at potential hires,’
Giles’ experience spans cases relating to international and domestic corruption, cartels, fraud, money laundering, insider dealing, market abuse and extradition. She is an experienced criminal trial litigator, with prominent wins under her belt including acting for Darrell Read, the ICAP broker who was acquitted at trial in the Libor II matter, which was prosecuted by the SFO and related to allegations of a conspiracy with Tom Hayes and others to manipulate the Libor rate.
Giles also acted for Rebekah Brooks in Operation Elveden, the investigation and prosecution for conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office which saw Brooks acquitted at trial.
Apart from the SFO and FCA, she has defended cases at trial against regulators including the CPS and OFT (now CMA), as well as cases involving the US Department of Justice, the New York State Attorney General and US regulators the SEC and the CFTC.
‘A&O has worked on many big investigations, but it is not uncommon for firms like ours to work closely with a specialist criminal law firm on these matters, added Caisley. ‘The hire of Eve means that we can now offer that specialist expertise ourselves, which we think clients will find a very compelling offering.’
Linklaters earlier this month followed the trend of City firms to target former prosecutors with the hire of controversial UK director of public prosecutions (DPP) Alison Saunders to its business crime team.
Other recent moves in this area include King & Spalding’s hire of Gareth Rees QC from the FRC, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s hire of Serious Fraud Office (SFO) bribery and corruption co-head Ben Morgan, Stewarts Law hiring Dechert fraud veteran David Hughes and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher recruiting SFO veteran Sacha Harber-Kelly.
nathalie.tidman@legalease.co.uk
