Slaughter and May has made a rare London partner hire with senior in-house banking lawyer Gayathri Kamalanathan set to join the London-headquartered firm in April 2021.

Kamalanathan is currently group head of litigation and enforcement at Danske Bank, where she has been co-ordinating its response to regulators and prosecutors following allegations of a €200m money laundering scandal relating to its Estonian branch, first discovered in 2018. 

Prior to joining Danske Bank in 2019 she spent more than eight years at Deutsche Bank, where she was head of UK litigation and enforcement, succeeding veteran lawyer Kieran Garvey in that role in 2017, having worked as his deputy previously. 

During her time at Deutsche Bank, the former Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer associate managed a wide portfolio of commercial litigation and financial services regulatory investigations and proceedings, including those relating to the LIBOR scandal.  

Richard Swallow, head of disputes at Slaughters, said: “Her decade of leading-edge experience in senior in-house roles has given her deep knowledge of complex litigation and global regulatory and criminal enforcement action.”

Senior partner Steve Cooke said Kamalanathan’s arrival marked a significant addition to its plans to grow its disputes practice, adding that the global impact of the pandemic was expected to lead to increased litigation and investigations.

He added that the appointment “gives us a great platform to support clients turning to us when their commercial and reputational interests are at stake”.

Her appointment follows the promotion of investigations specialist Tom Blanchard to the partnership in in May. 

Yesterday, the firm revealed that finance partner Oliver Storey had left the firm “with immediate effect” following an internal investigation.