Dechert hires leading financial crime lawyer

Dechert hires leading financial crime lawyer

As part of Rope's white collar and enforcement practice, Judith Seddon led its white collar and government enforcement group.

From Ropes & Gray, Dechert, the UK's largest legal services provider, has added a leading financial crime lawyer to its London office.

Judith Seddon joins the firm after four years with Ropes, where she was global co-head of government enforcement and white collar crime, having previously spent nearly 10 years at competitor Clifford Chance in the UK.

Her clients come to her for advice on UK and cross-border investigations into fraud, bribery and corruption since she is ranked Band 1 by Chambers for both corporate and individual financial crimes. Additionally, she offers advice on market manipulation and money laundering issues to global financial institutions, as well as expertise in extradition and compliance issues.

Having Seddon on staff at Dechert sharpens our transatlantic capabilities and her experience advising financial institutions, corporations and individuals cements our place in the UK's white collar elite," said Roger Burlingame, a London-based white collar partner at Dechert.

We have more than 100 lawyers practicing white collar crime, compliance and investigations at Dechert worldwide. He has advised Airbus in a global corruption investigation that was approximately €3.6 billion in settlement with the PNF in France, the SFO in the UK and DOJ and DOS in the US, as well as worked on investigations for Walmart's audit committee, Takata and Huawei.

Managing partner Gus Black, chair of Dechert's London management committee, commented: "With restructuring partner Adam Plainer and Kay Morley and corporate partners Mark Thompson and Sam Whittaker, Dechert's London office continues to attract top laterals." "Judith is an outstanding lawyer with extensive knowledge and experience and we are pleased to have her be part of Dechert."

As Seddon noted, "Dechert is a dispute powerhouse both on the US and the UK sides of the Atlantic and I am excited by the possibility of building on this strength and enhancing the firm's market presence."

The white collar team now has 25 attorneys, including 13 partners, in London, as Seddon joins. In the past few years, Dechert's white collar team has been bolstered by four senior female partners, including Maria Sit from Davis Polk & Wardwell in Hong Kong in 2019, Hartley West in San Francisco last September from Kobre & Kim and Clare Putnam Pozos at the start of this year from the United States Attorneys' Offices in Philadelphia.

As Squire Patton Boggs built its European investigations team, Squire Patton Boggs likewise hired partners Hannah Laming and Wayne Barnes, from dispute resolution firms Peters & Peters and Fulcrum Chambers respectively, to its London white collar team while adding a director in London and a counsel in Paris. He is now the head of the white collar investigations division of the US firm's European office.

White collar talent is also in high demand, with Allen & Overy adding former RPC head of civil fraud Andy McGregor to its team last month to exploit the increase in fraud claims in London. McGregor joined A&O shortly after Norton Rose Fulbright's EMEA dispute head Michael Godden joined the firm's financial services litigation team in London to enhance the firm's European finance practice.

FTI Consulting published a report in September in which it revealed that businesses are bracing for an expected spike in investigations as the regulatory environment continues to shift in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. Announcing a new era of public scrutiny, more than 80percent of the 2,800 companies surveyed said their business models needed to be fundamentally overhauled in order to become competitive.