White & Case's London office has been hit by the departure of four banking and capital markets partners, including the co-head of its London bank finance practice Chris Kandel, to US rival Latham & Watkins, Legal Week can reveal.

Kandel will join Latham alongside partners Sam Hamilton, Brian Conway and Jayanthi Sadanandan, in one of the most significant team hires by a US firm in London in recent years.

It is understood that talks have been ongoing for some time and that Kandel and Hamilton have already made the move to Latham, with the remaining two expected to join in the next few weeks.

The arrivals will boost partner headcount in Latham's City finance practice to 20.

The walkout marks a further blow for White & Case's London arm, coming after a difficult two years in which the office lost a number of high-profile partners, including finance partner Maurice Allen and Mike Goetz, who left for Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in March 2008.

Last August restructuring partner Dan Hamilton quit to join Ashurst, while banking and capital markets partners Tim Jeveons, Andrew Croxford and Andrew Caunt joined Greenberg Traurig Maher in the same month. High yield partner Jonathan Bloom also joined up with Allen and Goetz at Ropes & Gray's nascent City practice.

White & Case's bank finance practice, which will now be led by Magdalene Bayim-Adomako, now consists of two other partners – Barbara Choi and Antonia Rawlinson – and 30 associates.

Eric Berg, White & Case partner and global practice leader for banking, said: "Bank finance in London is and will remain an important area of practice for us and our clients and we remain fully committed to it. Plans were already in place to add additional depth to the partner team this year and today's news will not distract us from our well-established strategy of providing a top-tier bank finance practice for the benefit of our clients."