Legal Business

‘Another major milestone’: Latham returns to the Magic Circle again in City regulatory push

Latham & Watkins announced today (9 March) that it has continued bolstering its financial services offering in the City with the hire of Linklaters financial regulation partner Daniel Csefalvay.

Csefalvay – who made partner at Linklaters in 2015 – will join Latham’s corporate department and financial institutions group. His practice focuses on investment banks, fund managers and market infrastructure providers. He has been at Linklaters since 2008 when he joined as managing associate, having previously worked at Middletons (now K&L Gates) in Australia.

‘Daniel’s arrival will mark another major milestone as we look to establish one of the leading financial regulatory practices in the City. We are excited about the growth potential we see in London and globally for a wide range of UK, EU and transatlantic regulatory work,’ said Latham’s London managing partner Jay Sadanandan.

Witold Balaban, global co-chair of Latham’s financial institutions group, also added: ‘We are committed to building the practice with strength that can handle the most complex regulatory, transactional and litigation matters for global financial institutions. Daniel’s arrival is another exciting step toward achieving that goal.’

Csefalvay’s arrival follows other key financial regulation hires for the firm, particularly Ashurst’s head of financial services regulation Rob Moulton and partner Nicola Higgs in July and September 2016 respectively, both seen as leading City financial regulatory practitioners.

The new hire is also the latest in a prolonged period of City recruitment for Latham. The US firm recruited Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan litigator Martin Davies in January this year, Slaughter and May structured finance partner Sanjev Warna-kula-suriya and Allen & Overy’s prominent banking lawyer Stephen Kensell, all in August last year.

Also last year, the firm landed rising arbitration star Sophie Lamb from Debevoise & Plimpton and restructuring partner Simon Baskerville from Ashurst, among other high-profile hires.

In its latest global financials, Latham announced a 7% growth in turnover and broke the $3m mark for profit per equity partner (PEP) for the first time.

georgiana.tudor@legealease.co.uk