Sidley hires Willkie competition partner Elaine Whiteford in London

Sidley has hired competition litigation partner Elaine Whiteford from Willkie Farr & Gallagher in London, adding a senior disputes specialist with experience in some of the UK’s biggest collective actions.

Whiteford joins the firm’s litigation group, bringing more than 25 years’ experience, with cases spanning the Competition Appeal Tribunal, High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court.

Yvette Ostolaza, Chair of Sidley’s management committee said that the firm’s clients want “advisers who have been in the room for the most significant cases”, adding: “Elaine brings exactly that deep experience.”

Big-ticket cases

Whiteford leaves Willkie after around five years, having joined from Quinn Emanuel in late 2021 alongside fellow partners Boris Bronfentrinker and Nicola Chesaites in a high-profile team move that resulted in the transfer of Walter Merricks’ collective action against Mastercard - a landmark case that has helped shape the UK’s collective actions regime.

At Willkie, Whiteford was also one of the lead partners representing consumer organisation Which? in its roughly £3 billion collective action against Apple over iCloud storage fees.

Sidley’s London build

The move adds to Sidley’s private rapid London expansion which has seen the firm add more than 30 laterals over the past three years and relocate its private equity co-leader Sean Carney from Chicago to London.

Latham & Watkins has proved a particularly happy hunting ground with London recruits including leveraged finance partners Jay Sadanandan and Sam Hamilton, high-yield specialists Scott Colwell and Patrick Kwak, capital markets partners David Stewart and James Inness, and its former global real estate co-chair Jeremy Trinder.

Sidley also hired a three-partner funds team from Weil led by Ed Gander last April and Clifford Chance restructuring leaders Philip Hertz and Melissa Coakley in March this year.

In New York, Sidley’s recruitment of Crowell & Moring antitrust chair and former US Department of Justice antitrust official Juan Arteaga from this February shows that the firm is building out its competition practice on both sides of the Atlantic.

Tom Thesing, London managing partner said: “Elaine’s arrival is a further step in the sustained investment we are making in London, where we have grown significantly and continue to add leading partners across our disputes, regulatory, and transactional practices.”