Linklaters’ former Asia head of financial regulation is joining Latham & Watkins’ London office, The Lawyer can reveal.
Carl Fernandes has been a partner at Linklaters for 11 years, having joined the magic circle firm as an associate in 2001.
He moved from London to Hong Kong in 2005, where he was made up to partner and promoted to head of the Asian financial regulation practice in 2007. Fernandes returned to London seven years ago.
Latham’s co-chair of financial institutions Rob Moulton said Fernandes’ hire formed “the last piece of the partner puzzle” in the firm’s City financial regulatory group.
“He brings depth and gravitas with the largest financial institutions,” Moulton told The Lawyer.
“It’s a sign of true strength when we can say “We’re not trying to fill an expertise gap”. We’re confident enough to say that with Carl’s hire, we can do even more of what we’re already doing.”
Since Moulton’s arrival from Ashurst at the end of 2016, Latham has grown its financial regulatory capabilities from one to 18 lawyers.
On the partner side, Nicola Higgs followed Moulton from Ashurst months later, while the team was also boosted by the arrival of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan partner David Berman. Latham did also announce the hire of Linklaters partner Daniel Csefalvay in March 2017, although he never joined. He is now a partner at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner.
On the contentious side, Latham further brought on board Hogan Lovells financial disputes duo Jon Holland and Andrea Monks.
Moves to Latham from Linklaters are not common in London, with one partner at the US firm recently going in the other direction. Linklaters last year strengthened its ties to the Carlyle Group after hiring former in-house lawyer and Latham & Watkins partner Tom Alabaster.
Germany has seen far more movement between firms, with Latham hiring Linklaters corporate partners Nikolaos Paschos and Rainer Traugott within 18 months of each other.
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