Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has hired a former vice chair of Paul Hastings’ securities and capital markets practice, Christopher DeCresce, in New York. 

DeCresce focuses on capital markets, SEC reporting and securities law compliance, mainly for clients in the financial services, banking and fintech sectors. At Paul Hastings he acted for AditEdTech Acquisition in its $3.3bn “deSPAC” acquisition of Griid Infrastructure and Five Star Bancorp in its IPO of common stock. Last year he also co-led a Paul Hastings team that advised the underwriters in connection with SharkNinja’s secondary public offering of ordinary shares. 

DeCresce has joined Freshfields after two and a half years at Paul Hastings, before which he was a partner at Covington & Burling and managing director of the investment banking group at Sandler O’Neill + Partners. 

“His former positions in investment banking, alongside his significant experience leading the full spectrum of capital markets matters across the financial institutions sector and other key industries strengthens our capital markets offering for clients in the US and around the globe,” said Julian Pritchard, head of global transactions at Freshfields. 

DeCresce’s hire follows Freshfields becoming the only non-US firm to place in the top 10 of Refinitiv’s M&A legal advisor rankings by deal value for 2023, after working on deals worth more than $278bn over the course of the year. 

The firm kickstarted its drive to grow a heavyweight US practice in 2019 when it hired a four-partner corporate team led by rainmaker Ethan Klingsberg from Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton. Klingsberg joined as head of Freshfields’ US corporate and M&A team, with the firm luring veteran Cravath partner Damien Zoubek, another marquee hire, two years later to lead the practice alongside him. 

Over the past year the firm’s New York office has also been bolstered with the hire of partner David Sewell from Perkins Coie as US head of financial services regulatory, as well as private equity duo Neal Reenan and Ian Bushner, who joined from Latham & Watkins as global co-head of private capital and head of US private capital respectively. 

Sarah Solum, Freshfields’ US managing partner and US head of capital markets, said DeCresce “brings to the firm a wealth of experience in the financial services, banking and fintech sectors, representing companies on a variety of transactions through both frothy and challenging economic cycles”.

Paul Hastings did not respond to a request for comment on DeCresce’s move. 

The firm is one of the most active lateral hirers, adding teams from rivals including King & Spalding, Allen & Overy and Sidley Austin so far this year, but has also fallen prey to competitors in a fiercely competitive market. Its London office saw funds partner Ted Craig move over to Morgan Lewis & Bockius in July, shortly after Luke McDougall, a former global finance co-head, defected to Davis Polk. Earlier in the year finance partner Peter Burke, a former vice chair of the Paul Hastings’ Los Angeles office, also moved over to Sidley Austin.