Global law firm Clyde & Co is delighted to announce the arrival of partners Kim West and Bill Lutz, senior counsel Alec Boyd, and associates Preeti Singh and Thomas Cheswick. The team joins Clyde & Co from Tucker Ellis & West LLP.

Kim West was a name partner of Tucker Ellis & West LLP and the Managing Partner of the San Francisco office.

Kim represents insurers in connection with claims made under D&O, FI, professional liability, and fidelity policies.  He has represented both domestic and international insurers in connection with securities fraud class actions, shareholder derivative actions, employment and discrimination claims, and professional liability claims, including such significant matters as the IPO allocation litigation; FI claims arising out of the collapse of Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia, and Parmalat; mutual fund “market timing” and “late trading” litigation; insurance broker contingent commission litigation; options backdating litigation; sub-prime finance litigation; and Chinese reverse-mergers.

Kim also represents insurers in coverage litigation in state and federal court, and defends insured professionals such as life insurance agents.

He has participated in seminars in the United States, England, and Europe on topics such as securities litigation, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, complex class action litigation, and U.S. securities law exposure for non-U.S. corporations.

Bill Lutz practices in the area of insurance coverage, principally focusing on the representation of insurers with claims made under FI, professional liability, and fidelity policies. He has acted as coverage counsel to both domestic and international insurers in connection with customer and institutional claims of financial fraud, as well as negligence and breach of fiduciary duty claims. Bill has had significant involvement with insurance claims involving the collapse of Enron and WorldCom, mutual fund, market timing and late trading, the derivative trading losses sustained by Bankers Trust and other companies,  the insider trading losses of Drexel Burnham and Kidder Peabody, the Savings & Loan industry crisis, sub-prime finance, mortgage banking-related losses, and Chinese company reverse mergers.

Clyde & Co management board member James Burns said: “Our North American operation continues to go from strength to strength and this new team adds considerable weight to our growing US and global FI and D&O practices.”

Bill Casey, the managing partner of Clyde & Co San Francisco, said: “The arrival of the new team from Tucker Ellis is an exciting development for the San Francisco team and swiftly follows the arrival of new partner David Gabianelli. We now have nine partners and nearly 40 fee-earners advising insurers and reinsurers in complex litigation and arbitrations.”

Kim West said: “Clyde & Co has an unrivalled reputation in insurance and dispute resolution. Many complex, high exposure FI and D&O claims have a multi-jurisdictional element, and the broad international reach and depth of Clyde & Co provide an unsurpassed platform for representing the interests of my clients. Clyde & Co has grown exponentially in the US and has attracted some of the most respected insurance attorneys in the market, who are free to specialize without the conflicts present at other firms.”

Clyde & Co announced the appointment of David Gabianelli as a partner in San Francisco earlier this month. David was previously Of Counsel at Squire Sanders and has nearly 20 years of insurance litigation experience and has handled complex insurance coverage disputes including six trials in state and federal courts.