Linklaters partner Gavin Lewis

Linklaters has sent one of its top disputes partners on secondment to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). 

Looking to shore up its contentious regulatory credentials, Linklaters disputes partner Gavin Lewis will be at the FCA for a six-month stint, where he will work alongside the organisation's head of enforcement, Mark Steward.

Formerly HSF head of Asia litigation, Lewis joined Linklaters in 2013, spending most of his time in Hong Kong advising on diverse commercial litigation matters as well as investigations initiated by Hong Kong's commercial crime authorities.

Taking a senior partner out of the client workstream is an expensive move for the firm, but one Linklaters global disputes head Michael Bennett believes will pay off in the long term.

He said that though the firm would temporarily lose "an experienced partner from our corridors" the assessment was that "the experience he would gain would be beneficial both to us and the FCA".

With Lewis on secondment, Linklaters is one of only two magic circle firms with a partner currently deployed to one of the major regulatory bodies.

James Bole, a junior partner at Clifford Chance, has six months left of his two-year secondment to The Takeover Panel, where he is acting secretary. None of Allen & Overy, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer or Slaughter and May have a partner currently on secondment. 

The move comes on the back of an increasingly active revolving door between the U.K.'s regulators and private practices across the City.

Freshfields and Hogan Lovells have recruited out of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in recent years, hiring Ben Morgan and Claire Lipworth respectively.

It is not the first time Linklaters has sought to galvanise its regulatory credentials in either the U.K. or U.S. 

Alison Saunders

In the U.K. last month, the partnership added former director of public prosecutions Alison Saunders to its ranks, and in 2013 hired Martyn Hopper who was for nearly a decade the enforcement head at FCA predecessor the Financial Services Authority. 

In the U.S., the firm's Washington, D.C. base hired former U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) prosecutor Adam Lurie in 2016, and the following year brought in Matthew Axelrod – a 13-year DoJ veteran.

Regarding the London office, Bennett said: "We feel by summer we'll have the experience of a senior prosecutor in Alison Saunders, and that of someone who's done six months contentious regulatory work from within FCA enforcement – it's a powerful combination."