June 30, 2010 – Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP announced today that commercial litigator Robert Hickmott has joined the firm’s London office as a partner. Hickmott was previously a partner at CMS Cameron McKenna in their banking and insolvency litigation group.
Hickmott has represented clients in numerous landmark insolvency-related disputes, including Lehman, TXU, Swissair and Enron. He is currently acting for the liquidator in the high profile, cross-border litigation surrounding the UK assets of Allen Stanford, the Chairman of Stanford Financial Group, who has been charged with fraud. Hickmott said, “Quinn Emanuel represents a new and exciting challenge for me. I have no doubt that the firm’s litigation-only model and willingness to take on the banks will be enormously successful in London, as it has been in the States.”
Quinn Emanuel managing partner John Quinn commented, “Robert has substantial experience in finance and insolvency litigation, and at the same time is young and entrepreneurial.” He added, “Hiring Robert continues our strategic growth in London. The office now has 14 lawyers and we will continue to grow in London to meet client needs. By focusing solely on business litigation and remaining free of conflicts, the firm is in a unique position to offer legal services to many global financial industry clients.”
The London office of Quinn Emanuel has recently secured landmark victories in a host of big-ticket cases including Re Sigma Financial Corp, UBS AG and UBS Securities v HSH Nordbank, and on behalf of a banker in a dispute arising out of the sale of Skype to eBay. Hickott’s hire comes on the heels of commercial litigator Alex Gerbi who joined the London office last month. In February, the firm launched its first continental European office in Mannheim, Germany, where the EU’s specialized IP courts are located and the team focuses on patent litigation.
Quinn Emanuel is a 400+ lawyer business litigation firm — the largest in the world devoted solely to business litigation — with offices in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Tokyo, London and Mannheim. Firm lawyers have tried over 1290 cases, winning over 90% of them. When representing defendants, our trial experience gets us better settlements or defense verdicts. When representing plaintiffs, our lawyers have won over $16 billion in judgments and settlements. We are the only firm in the United States that has won four nine-figure jury verdicts in the last seven years. We have also obtained four nine-figure and three 10-figure settlements in the same period. The American Lawyer recently named Quinn Emanuel the IP Litigation Department of the Year and named the firm one of the top six litigation departments in the US. Further information about the firm is available at www.quinnemanuel.com.
