Cleary Gottlieb Adds New English Litigation Partner in London Office

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP announced today that leading English banking and finance litigation lawyer Jonathan Kelly will join the partnership in April 2010. Mr. Kelly, 45, joins from Simmons & Simmons, where he was head of the finance litigation group.

“Jonathan’s experience in financial services litigation fits perfectly with our plans for the growth of our English dispute resolution practice, and follows the transfer of partner Jonathan Blackman from our New York office last year,” says Cleary Gottlieb managing partner Mark Walker. “Jonathan will enhance our existing reputation in European and global litigation and arbitration matters, as well as our high profile in financial services, and we look forward to working with him.”

Mr. Kelly specializes in substantial English and international commercial litigation arising out of banking and financial services disputes, and regulatory investigations. He has advised major financial institutions on significant industry issues in different business areas, including asset management, banking, capital markets, derivatives, private banking, structured finance and regulatory enforcement.

Mr. Kelly qualified as a solicitor in the litigation department at Simmons & Simmons in 1989 and subsequently spent time on secondment to the firm’s Hong Kong office and to a U.S. investment banking client of the firm. In 1995 he became a partner and joined the commercial litigation group, specializing in banking and financial services litigation.

“I am tremendously excited to be joining Cleary Gottlieb,” says Jonathan Kelly. “It is an outstanding international firm with a unique reputation on which to build an English litigation practice and I am very much looking forward to this new challenge.”

Cleary Gottlieb’s litigation practice regularly advises on high-profile disputes involving securities, M&A, competition issues, sovereign debt, bilateral and multilateral investment treaties, as well as white-collar investigations and defense, and has been particularly active in matters stemming from the financial crisis.

About Cleary Gottlieb
Founded in 1946 by lawyers committed to legal excellence, internationalism and diversity, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP is a leading international law firm with approximately 1,100 lawyers around the world. Consistently recognized as one of the top litigation and arbitration firms in the world by Chambers Global, Chambers USA, Chambers Latin America, Benchmark Litigation and The U.S. Legal 500, the firm was also named one of the top six firms worldwide appearing as arbitration counsel in 2009 by The American Lawyer in its biennial “Arbitration Scorecard.”

Cleary Gottlieb has offices in New York, Washington, D.C., Paris, Brussels, London, Moscow, Frankfurt, Cologne, Rome, Milan, Hong Kong and Beijing.