DLA ex-partners return to the fold

The former managing director of Fulham Football Club Michael Fiddy will join DLA's City office as a partner in the new year.
He will be joined by the former financial regulation partner Peter Bibby, who left DLA in May 1998 to take up a position at the Financial Services Authority (FSA). Bibby will start in April.
Fiddy left DLA two years ago, having spent six years within the firm's business support and restructuring group. He will return to work alongside Simon Neilson-Clark, who heads the group.
Fiddy, whose clients include the Royal Bank of Scotland and the big five accountancy firms, said that he is not concerned about having been out of law for two years. "My clients are my friends," he said. "I took up the position at Fulham with two objectives: to achieve Premiership [status] for the club and to obtain planning permission for the new £70m stadium. I fulfilled both of these."
Bibby, who is currently head of enforcement at the FSA, will take up a key management role alongside head of regulation Neil Gerrard.
He said that returning to DLA would give him the opportunity to take DLA's regulatory practice forward. "Hopefully, I can bring knowledge of what the regulators are looking for to the advice we give to clients," he said.
When he left in 1998, the Financial Services and Markets Act was going through Parliament, which made it an exciting time to work for the FSA.
He led many of the major regulatory enforcement cases over the past decade, including the Investment Management Regulatory Organisation's and the Personal Investment Authority's actions in respect of the pension review, the action against Morgan Grenfell and the recent cases against Royal Scottish Assurance, Winterthur and Gan.
"It's natural to come back, because DLA is committed to regulatory work as part of its future strategy," said Bibby.