Financial services litigation partner Parham Kouchikali has joined Taylor Wessing’s disputes practice from RPC, ending a nine-year stint at the firm. 

Kouchikali focuses on high-profile and complex financial litigation and has particular expertise in banking disputes and civil fraud.

His most recent notable experience was as lead partner in the litigation on the Steinhoff case, described by local media as one of South Africa’s biggest corporate fraud scandals, involving complex civil fraud issues.

Taylor Wessing’s UK head of disputes, Andrew Howell, said Kouchikali’s expertise would strengthen the firm’s offering for premium cross-border commercial litigation. Kouchikali said the move was client-led, giving him “the opportunity to continue to act on the most complex, cross-border financial litigation and civil fraud matters”. 

Kouchikali has considerable experience in crisis management and FCA investigations and acting for individuals in a regulatory setting, having worked for 11 years at Magic Circle law firm Linklaters, which is known for its strong retail and investment banking client base. During that period he was seconded to key Linklaters clients Goldman Sachs and RBS.

His departure from Linklaters in April 2015 to join RPC as a partner provided him with the opportunity in an article in Legal Cheek to reflect on his achievements to that point having moved to England with his family, aged eight, at the height of the Iran-Iraq war unable to speak English. 

Subsequently, he led RPC’s Ethnicity Work Stream, tackling racial diversity, and recruited, trained and retained trainee solicitors in disputes. 

Kouchikali has a large and varied client base, regularly advising continental banks, hedge funds, family offices and high-net-worth investors, commensurate with RPC’s ambitions in that sector. 

At RPC, he initially worked closely with partners Richard Burger and Robbie Constance before taking a more prominent role following their departures to DWF in 2018. He subsequently worked with partners including Jonathan Cary, Simon Hart and Tom Hibbert. 

Kouchikali is the 14th lateral hire made by Taylor Wessing this year, six of them dispute partners. 

In January, Giles Crown, Lewis Silkin’s former co-managing partner and a leading IP disputes specialist, joined in London and Ryan Ferry joined in Dublin from disputes powerhouse Arthur Cox to establish its Irish litigation capabilities. 

In May, Taylor Wessing added another partner to its Dublin office, recruiting patent litigation specialist Eoin Martyn from McCann FitzGerald, where he was a senior associate. May also saw the arrival of Natasha Zahid in Dubai from Clyde & Co to head its contentious MENA offering while a month later leading Dutch white-collar crime partner Charlotte Posthuma joined from local firm Banning.

The news comes as fellow financial services litigator Shane Gleghorn was re-elected as managing partner last month for a third term. 

RPC, meanwhile, has offset Kouchikali’s departure with the recruitment of Eversheds Sutherland’s former head of civil fraud, Neville Byford, who joined in June alongside Zoë Mernick-Levene, who arrived from Leigh Day to enhance its competition litigation capabilities.

Byford’s CV stretches back 30 years; high-profile work includes advising well-known US investor John De Lorean to, more recently, acting in significant cases such as the Kuwaiti PIFSS litigation, one of the most significant fraud disputes ever heard in the UK, and Barclays Pharmaceuticals’ claim against the Mekni family, alongside a decade-long involvement in a high-value Guernsey Trust fraud dispute. 

In a statement, RPC said: “We thank Parham for his contributions to RPC as a litigation partner and training principal. We are sure he will have great success in his new role and wish him all the best.”