Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has hired Matthew O'Callaghan as a partner in Hong Kong from Goldman Sachs, where he was an in-house legal counsel.

O'Callaghan, who is qualified in England and Australia, will co-head the Magic Circle firm's Asia financial services with Hong Kong partner Royce Miller, who joined Freshfields from Citigroup in 2010 after 16 years.

O'Callaghan leaves Goldman Sachs after 14 years with the Wall Street bank, most recently based in Sydney as managing director and senior counsel. He was promoted to managing director in 2016.

Before joining the bank in 2005, he was an associate for a year at Freshfields' London office and for two and a half years at Australian firm Clayton Utz.

Georgia Dawson, Freshfields' Hong Kong-based Asia managing partner, said in a statement that O'Callaghan brings valuable investment banking and financial services experience to the firm.

At least eight other international firms have recruited financial services regulatory partners since 2018, including fellow Magic Circle firm Linklaters, which also recruited a former Goldman Sachs managing director Andrew Chung as a Hong Kong partner in August of last year. Regulatory lawyers told Law.com's The Asian Lawyer in April that there is increased demand in large, high-profile cases and compliance work, though work related to Hong Kong's securities regulator, the Securities and Futures Commission, is significantly down.

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