White & Case’s aggressive sweep on the City lateral market continued in October with the hire of Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) infrastructure partner Simon Caridia. Caridia advises on both greenfield and brownfield transactions, and spent nearly a decade at Linklaters before joining HSF in 2015. It constitutes White & Case’s 13th lateral this year alone.
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s City bench saw another departure in September when capital markets heavyweight Ashar Qureshi transferred to the London offices of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson. It brings a four-year stint at the Magic Circle firm to an end, with Qureshi lined up to head Fried Frank’s EMEA global transactions team. Qureshi is well-versed in acting for financial institutions, corporates and governments on a wide range of transactional issues.
In September, Kingsley Napley pulled off a significant ex-prosecutor coup, announcing that former general counsel of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) Alun Milford (pictured) will be joining as a partner in early 2019. Milford, who was tipped to succeed Sir David Green as director of the SFO, has a long history in public prosecution after stints at the Crown Prosecution Service and the Attorney General’s Office. He will be Kingsley Napley’s twelfth criminal litigation partner.
In the same month, Travers Smith made a rare lateral play, bringing in pensions specialist Sebastian Reger from Sacker & Partners. Reger had been a partner at the boutique since 2015, although his career began at Freshfields. He will work alongside Travers’ dedicated pensions partners but will practise in its derivatives and structured products group.
HFW broke its US lateral hire duck, making its first appointment in the region with energy partner Derek Anchondo. Anchondo joins HFW’s Houston office from Greenberg Traurig, bringing the office headcount to eight partners alongside 19 other lawyers.