Slaughter and May has made a rare City hire, the firm announced today (19 November), recruiting a partner into its disputes and investigations practice from in-house.
Gayathri Kamalanathan is currently head of group litigation and enforcement at Danske Bank in Copenhagen, having been at the bank for almost two years, but is now set to join Slaughters in April. Prior to joining Dankse Bank, Kamalanathan had an eight-year spell at Deutsche Bank where she served as managing director UK head of litigation and enforcement and spent nine years at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer where she was a senior associate.
Richard Swallow, head of Slaughters’ disputes and investigations group, commented: ‘Gayathri is an absolutely fantastic hire for us at a time when we are growing our team and securing some significant victories for clients. Her decade of leading-edge experience in senior in-house roles has given her deep knowledge of complex litigation and global regulatory and criminal enforcement action. All the partners are immensely excited to add Gayathri to our team.’
Such recruitment is rare for Slaughters, especially in the City. However, in 2018 the firm made a major hire into its investigations practice, luring former Serious Fraud Office director Sir David Green QC as a consultant . The firm has also made partner hires into its Hong Kong office in recent years.
Steve Cooke, senior partner, added: ‘Gayathri’s appointment marks another significant point in the continued growth of the contentious side of our practice. The global impact of Covid-19 is widely predicted to include a sharp increase in litigation and investigations and the addition of Gayathri to our market-leading team gives us a great platform to support clients turning to us when their commercial and reputational interests are at stake.’
In less welcome news, the firm confirmed yesterday (18 November) that a partner had left the firm following an internal probe, with the Solicitors Regulation Authority notified of the matter.
