This month, Clifford Chance announced the appointment of Vasu Muthyala as partner within the law firm’s Asia Pacific Litigation practice.
Based in Singapore, Muthyala’s new post marks “the latest in a series of targeted senior level hires designed to further strengthen the firm's leading global white-collar crime practice,” Nish Shetty, head of Litigation and Dispute Resolution practice for Asia Pacific told FinanceAsia.
He confirmed that Muthyala’s appointment on August 08 brings the total number of dispute resolution partners in Asia to 22.
“We continue to see strong demand from our clients across the entire spectrum of international regulatory issues,” said Shetty. He added that the firm is bullish about opportunities in the Asian despite resolution market and will expand accordingly to take advantage of them.
“General reputation for effective dispute resolution advice; overall market conditions including the collapse of crypto firms, declining valuations and covenant breaches and increasingly uncertain business environment given geo-political considerations – these are factors driving demand for Clifford Chance’s Litigation and Dispute Resolution services in Asia Pacific,” he told FA.
As one of the few former US Department of Justice prosecutors and US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement lawyers in Asia, Muthyala brings extensive experience to the firm.
“Vasu will focus on US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations, anti-money laundering, sanctions and securities fraud,” Shetty said.
Muthyala’s corporate profile highlights his experience representing a multinational US Fortune 100 company in an internal investigation of possible fraud and corruption stemming from its Asian operations; senior government officials in US congressional investigations; a leading global financial services institution in an SEC investigation relating to an alternative trading system; high-ranking executives in corruption investigations relating to conduct in India, China, Australia, Mexico and Germany, among others.
He joins Clifford Chance from Kobre & Kim in Hong Kong. The partnership structure employed by the firm means that Muthyala does not report directly into a senior team member.
Other recent appointments to Clifford Chance’s global white-collar crime practice include Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and Trade Control partner, Renée Latour who joined the US practice in January 2021, anti-money laundering and data governance counsel, Jamal El-Hindi, who joined the firm in Washington DC in June 2021, the appointment in January 2021 of regulatory and white-collar defence counsel Tom Joksimovic in New York, and Christopher David, as director of white-collar crime in London, in June 2021.
