David joined Herbert Smith as a partner on 1 December 2005, having been Leading Advocate at the Financial Services Authority and acting Director of Enforcement. Before joining the FSA he was widely recognised as a heavy weight financial services litigation partner of many years and leading practitioner in contentious financial services regulatory work at another magic circle law firm.
David combines his significant experience of working for major financial services institutions with his recent experience of working at a senior level within the FSA. Since returning to private practice, David has extended his regulatory practice to include legal services where the FSA model is directly relevant to the implementation of the new regulatory regime. He is also an experienced advocate.
Credentials
- extensive experience in representing financial institutions in, and advising senior management on, regulatory investigations and enforcement proceedings, including multi-jurisdictional regulatory action (cross-border securities and derivatives trading)
- representing solicitors in disciplinary investigations and proceedings by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (e.g. the Law Society action against two Freshfields partners in relation to Marks and Spencer)
- represented the FSA in most of its cases in the Financial Services and Markets Tribunal from implementation of the new regulatory regime in 2001 until 2005
- represented FSA Enforcement in the design, implementation and subsequent review of the internal decision–making process (report July 2005)
- extensive experience in High Court commercial litigation (eg, arising out of the collapses of a financial services group; the interest rate swap market for local authorities; and the International Tin Council)
- Recorder (part-time judge) sitting in the Crown Court 1999 - 2005