London-based litigation boutique Pallas Partners has grown in New York with the hire of a senior federal prosecutor.

Josh Naftalis, who led the recent conviction of Goldman Sachs investment banker Brijesh Goel for insider trading, has joined Pallas as a partner in the litigation and investigation practice, the firm said today.

He has joined as Pallas’ third partner in New York, where the firm opened last autumn just months after launching in London when former Boies Schiller Flexner (BSF) deputy chair Natasha Harrison led a mass defection from the high-profile US firm’s City arm.

“Josh is an extremely talented lawyer and brings a unique perspective to the firm with a wealth of experience in acting on high-end, complex investigations and litigation matters,” Harrison said. “His expertise will complement our existing client offering and will support the continued growth of Pallas New York following on from an incredibly successful first year. We are excited to welcome Josh to the firm and look forward to working with him.”

Naftalis has joined Pallas after more than a decade in the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), where he led a number of significant white collar prosecutions and trials and was a senior member of the Securities & Commodities Fraud Task Force for seven years as well as the Money Laundering Unit. He also worked on the KleptoCature Task Force, which worked to seize assets from Russian oligarchs sanctioned over the Ukraine invasion. Prior to working as a federal prosecutor Naftalis practised as an associate for Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz for six years. 

Pallas noted that Naftalis secured convictions in every federal criminal trial that he led as an assistant US attorney, including the conviction of Visium portfolio manager Stefan Lumiere for securities mismarking in 2017. 

He also led the recent convictions of four men who coordinated to trade stocks based on non-public information relating to Medicare reimbursement rate changes for insider trading in United States v. Blaszczak, though these were thrown out by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit last December. 

In New York, Naftalis will work alongside partner Duane Loft and commercial litigator Shireen Brady, who joined the firm in January from Gibson Dunn & Crutcher along with two associates from other firms. The team in New York also houses counsel Anastasia Cembrovska and Melissa Kelley. 

“We are thrilled to have Josh join our growing New York office,” Loft said. “His record as a prosecutor and trial lawyer is extraordinary. With Josh, we now have a premier white collar criminal defence practice and another star litigator to continue our success here in New York.”

Pallas is currently representing around 800 Credit Suisse AT1 bondholders who held securities valued at $1.7bn and have filed claims against Swiss banking regulator FINMA, alleging its decision to write down the value of the bonds to zero as part of UBS’s acquisition of Credit Suisse should be considered invalid. In February the firm also filed a pioneering suit against the directors of Shell on behalf of a shareholder, claiming the board had failed to manage risks posed to the company by climate change.

Meanwhile, since the departure of Harrison and her team, BSF has been replenishing its London bench with partner hires from firms including Locke Lord and Swiss disputes firm Lalive and now has five partners and four associates in the UK.