White & Case exodus continues as Latham snares eight more partners
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Another eight partners have resigned from across White & Case’s global network to join US rival Latham & Watkins.
The eight partners are Villiers Terblanche and Nick Collins in Abu Dhabi, Craig Nethercott and Glen Ireland in London, Christopher Cross and Clement Fondufe in New York and Christopher Langdon and Mohammed Al-Sheikh in Riyadh.
The group has expertise in banking and finance and Middle East matters, with a particular focus on Islamic finance, energy, and mining and metals. Ireland is co-head of the firm’s global mining and metals group while Mohammed Al-Sheikh is head of the firm’s Saudi office, where he acted as sponsor to White & Case. International firms cannot operate in Saudi without a local sponsor.
In an email to the firm White & Case chairman Hugh Verrier said: “Our bank finance practice is and will remain an important area of practice for the firm globally. We’re similarly dedicated to our Middle East practice and our presence there. We’re not closing any of our offices in the Middle East.”
These latest departures follows news on Friday that White & Case had lost four London partners to Lathams. The group included Chris Kandel, who co-heads White & Case’s London bank finance group. He is moving along with partners Sam Hamilton, Brian Conway and Jayanthi Sadanandan (29 January 2010).
Last month The Lawyer revealed that Abu Dhabi-based capital markets partner Sami Al Louzi had decided to leave for Vinson & Elkins (25 January 2010).
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Readers' comments (28)
Adrian | 1-Feb-2010 11:30 am
Oh dear...
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Anonymous | 1-Feb-2010 11:40 am
Hostile takeover... effective control over the assets of the target, which will, hopefully, remain intact as a going concern...
Oh, deers.
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Ben | 1-Feb-2010 12:13 pm
I am happy for Hugh who always knows how to select right people to get destructing things done!
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Anonymous | 1-Feb-2010 12:20 pm
This is an unmitigated disaster for White & Case and will surely mark the beginning of the end of their "joined at the hip" relationship with Saudi Aramco.
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Anonymous | 1-Feb-2010 1:10 pm
Interesting that the two other Projects partners who were in the circle of trust and part of the negotiations to leave are still at WC. Can we expect another announcement shortly?
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Anonymous | 1-Feb-2010 1:34 pm
What's interesting about this is that the latest departures come from the project finance side rather than the banking/capmarkets group. The relationship of the banking/capmarkets group with Verrier has been at the core of much of the troubles in recent years (most of the departures to date have been totally predictable) whereas the projects group has been very much part of the inner circle, due to a large degree to the historical bias towards projects within the finance practice globally. The Middle East was a key personal priority for Stopford for example. So this is no longer about silos and personalities and is instead something much more fundamental, which can only mean that there's much more of this to come.
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Anonymous | 1-Feb-2010 2:05 pm
After having a partners' conference in Paris over the weekend? Wished I was a fly on the wall. Can't have happened to a nicer firm!!
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Anonymous | 1-Feb-2010 3:50 pm
Comes about a year after the Cadwalader London debacle...this lot saw the writing on the wall aswell and jumped before a fall (quite likely there own!)
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Anonymous | 1-Feb-2010 4:42 pm
W&C have nearly 400 lawyers in London so there is no comparison. Cadwalader did property securitision which was a dead market.
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Anonymous | 1-Feb-2010 6:17 pm
Yes I do think the comparison with Cads is dubious. For one thing, and though you certainly can't say this of a number of US names, there isn't a great deal of room for rejects at a firm like Latham & Watkins.
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