A quick rundown of the recent hires and moves in ChessGlobe the offshore legal market.

Walkers Global has hired a highly regarded offshore investment funds specialist, Dawn Howe who has joined the firm in London as a Partner in the Global Investment Funds Group. Howe has joined from Maples and Calder will initially be based in Walkers’ London office and will transfer to the firm’s Cayman Islands headquarters, subject to the relevant immigration requirements. “We’re particularly pleased to have someone with Dawn’s outstanding reputation join us,” said Mark Lewis – Senior Partner. “She has worked with some of the most senior figures in the investment funds industry who speak in glowing terms of both her legal ability and the quality of her work,” he added.



Howe advises upon the structuring, launch and ongoing transactions for both hedge funds and private equity funds and has advised many leading industry names. She has acknowledged expertise on cross-jurisdictional and regulatory issues affecting Cayman Islands investment funds, including issues relating to the application of AIFMD and FATCA.

At the London office, led by Managing Partner Jack Boldarin, who relocated from Walkers’ Jersey office earlier this year, she will work alongside Walkers’ London-based investment funds partners, Jasmine Amaria, Anne Forbes-Harper and Hughie Wong, as well as David Brennand, another experienced investment funds specialist who also recently joined Walkers as a Partner from Sidley Austin LLP.

This is the second senior investment funds lawyer who previously worked for Maples and Calder that Walkers has hired in the last year; in 2012 Investment Funds lawyer Melissa Lim joined Walkers as Senior Counsel in Cayman from Maples, and after an excellent year with Walkers, a spokesperson said Lim was promoted to partner this year.

Walkers said it is internationally recognised as one of the leading global offshore investment funds practitioners and on 1 March this year the readership of Hedgeweek voted Walkers ‘Best Offshore Law Firm’ in its fourth global Hedgeweek Global Awards. The honour was based on the results of the publication’s annual survey of nearly 60,000 subscribers, which sought to determine the ‘best in class’ in a range of categories, the law firm added.

Harneys has added another experienced Cayman Islands lawyer to its rapidly expanding team with the hire of senior associate Remo Dalimonthee. Remo’s arrival brings the number of Harneys lawyers practising Cayman law around the globe to 36. The firm has Cayman law experts at the partner and senior associate levels in the Caribbean, Latin America, Hong Kong, Africa and London.

Remo, who has been Cayman-qualified since 2003, has diverse language skills including fluent German and Spanish. As an investment funds specialist based in Harneys’ London office, he is well-positioned to provide timely advice to clients in the UK, Europe, Russia and beyond.

Remo’s practice focuses on investment funds (including the establishment, maintenance and restructuring of open and closed ended fund structures) and general corporate matters. He has extensive onshore and offshore experience in international capital markets, banking and structured finance (including repackagings and CLOs/CDOs). He has advised clients on AIM listed entities, Sharia compliant structures, bond issues and share buy-backs.

From 2004 to 2013 Remo practised Cayman Islands law at Solomon Harris where he split his time between the Cayman Islands, Germany and Switzerland, advising clients from Europe, Japan, China, the Middle East and Russia on a broad range of corporate, fund related and capital markets matters. Remo trained at Jones Day in London, qualifying into the Corporate Department. He subsequently worked at Allen & Overy, Cadwalader and Slaughter and May.

Earlier this summer, Partners Colin Berryman and Andrew Morehouse joined Harneys’ Cayman-based team. Both worked previously with Ogier in the Cayman Islands.

Maples and Calder announced the recruitment of Sherice Arman, who will be joining the firm’s Finance group as Counsel later this month. Ms. Arman, formerly a partner at Appleby, brings with her many years of finance related experience, particularly in ship and aircraft financing transactions and registrations. She will continue to focus on those areas as a member of Maples and Calder’s leading asset finance team in the Cayman Islands.

“We are delighted to have Sherice join us,” said partner and Global Head of Asset Finance, Mark Western, who is based in the firm’s Hong Kong office. “She is well recognised within the industry as a leading shipping expert. Bringing her on board enables Maples and Calder to further extend our asset finance reach.”

Added Richard Smith, Director-General, Civil Aviation Authority of the Cayman Islands (CAACI), “Sherice is an outstanding lawyer. She has worked tirelessly with the CAACI in its efforts to market the jurisdiction and showcase our aviation finance expertise. We are delighted to hear of her return to the market after a brief absence and look forward to working with her again in our business development initiatives.”

Maples and Calder recently co-sponsored CAACI’s signature aviation tradeshow, EBACE, in Geneva and the firm’s attorneys will be attending both the 2013 Monaco Yacht Show and the 2013 Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show as sponsor and participant of the Cayman Yacht Forum organised by the Cayman Islands Shipping Registry (CISR). Maples and Calder is also sponsoring and participating in the CISR’s Cayman Yacht Forum, to be held in London in November.

Rebecca Hume has joined global litigation boutique Kobre & Kim, which established a presence in Cayman in 2012. Hume is an experienced attorney who focuses her practice on international judgment enforcement and asset recovery, complex commercial litigation and insolvency litigation in various offshore jurisdictions. She joins from Charles Adams Ritchie & Duckworth (CARD) in Cayman, where she focused on advising and litigating on behalf of clients in regard to complex contentious insolvency and cross-border asset recovery matters.