Growing the London litigation market is the goal of Eversheds Sutherland, with the hiring of two partners …
Growing the London litigation market is the goal of Eversheds Sutherland, with the hiring of two partners with experience in corporate and telecommunications disputes.
Two London-based litigators have been hired by Eversheds Sutherland as part of a program to expand litigation practice. The couple’s expertise in telecommunications, media and technology (TMT), accounting disputes, corporate affairs and bankruptcy shows the areas in which the firm’s dispute resolution manager will be engaged in the years to come.
Phillip Richardson joined the company by Linklaters on Monday July 5th while Sheena Buddhev will participate by Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld on September 1st. Both have earned promotions as partners in the process.
Mark Davenport, Head of Commercial Dispute Resolution at Eversheds Sutherland, is proud of the growth in litigation practice of over 10% annually over the past five years and says the new hires will enrich his plan for the next five years both within the UK and internationally .
The two give the firm “something we don’t quite have at the moment,” he told CDR, referring to Buddhev’s hedge fund, private equity and corporate litigation practices that synergize with non-contentious practices elsewhere in the firm offers. Richardson’s TMT and accounting disputes will build on existing skills: “These are areas of growth,” he says.
SPECIALIST FOCUS
Aside from her corporate work for private equity and hedge fund clients, Buddhev believes that her practice, which includes a large chunk of bankruptcy work, “really fits the current environment,” as companies adapt to the financial realities of life after the pandemic put.
“While bankruptcies are at an all-time low, mainly due to government aid packages, we expect both bankruptcies and restructuring work to rise sharply later this year,” she says.
She has also worked on international arbitration and brings one such case to the firm.
On the corporate side, she points to the increase in shareholder disputes and disputes over Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) in the US and believes it is only a matter of time before both cross the Atlantic: “I will definitely see new” opportunities due to investments and changing legal frameworks “, in particular group disputes under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.
Buddhev spent five years with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, rose to Senior Associate, then spent nine years in Bingham McCutchen’s London office, headquartered in Boston, until the company collapsed in 2014, and joined Akin Gump as Senior Counsel in October of that year.
Her work in 2019 includes successfully defending US businessman Robert Foresman in the High Court against allegations that he was involved with the Russian government in the demise of the Yukos oil company.
After having had time to ponder during the lockdown, Buddhev felt that the time was ripe for her to move up to the partner level and felt like “a platform that I knew would provide me with the right foundation” as well as ties to corporate practices.
“I’ve seen the post-pandemic dispute market pick up significantly as the environment improves, and I really wanted to take my career to the next level,” she adds.
Richardson says his job will be to develop TMT and accounting practices and work together to do so Kari McCormick, who acts as a partner in financial services disputes and investigations for Burges salmon in March 2020.
He saw a similar opportunity to develop his practice from a partnership within an expansion-minded company: “My practice has the potential to complement what already exists, but I hope I have some experience and some clients and contacts who will be added to the team here and in particular some of my telecommunications disputes will work. “
The latter area has become even more important than usual during the pandemic, and with the introduction of the 5G network, in addition to the economic cycle and trade tensions in this industry between the west and China, there is a lot of upheaval in this sector technology that we use is like that We are up to date and the regulatory environment is catching up, and there are real opportunities as an industry, ”he explains.
Another area where regulatory interest is growing is in accounting, given the financial distress caused by Covid-19 and the Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority (ARGA) set to be launched as the UK’s new regulator in 2023.
“There are various professional problems that arise when the economic cycle fluctuates and bankruptcies occur, there will be professional claims against accountants and auditors as well as insolvency administrators and new regulatory measures.”
He oversees competition and tax issues for technology companies as well as Lloyd versus Google and their impact on TMT data protection.
He spent six years with Linklaters after joining the Magic Circle company in his native Australia and spent more than two years as a senior associate with their alliance company Allen’s, in Perth.
COMPANY-WIDE FOCUS
Davenport says TMT is an “important sector” of the company, as is energy disputes, while bankruptcy and hedge funds are “obvious areas that need improvement” and accounting “continues to build”. The approach is about “maximizing opportunities,” he says.
He draws parallels between the pandemic and the aftermath of the global financial crisis a decade ago. “That was also the beginning of a wave of arguments. Nobody knows how this will play out, but it is probably a good time for lawyers and it seems a reasonable time to expand the practice further. “
In a statement, the firm’s co-head of global litigation said Paul Worth, said the couple “will be joining our growing London dispute resolution team at an incredibly exciting time,” referring to the growth of the practice over the past four years. “We continue to invest in a full-service litigation and investigation process at a time when some companies are taking a more restrictive approach,” he added.
Eversheds Sutherland partnered with Portuguese company FCB Advogados last month, giving them reach in Portugal, Africa and Latin America.
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