Gayathri has extensive experience of handling complex domestic and cross-border investigations and litigation. She has more than a decade of leading edge experience from senior in-house roles at banks as Head of Group Litigation and Enforcement at Danske Bank in Copenhagen and UK Head of Litigation and Regulatory Enforcement for Deutsche Bank, and spent nine years at another leading law firm advising corporates and financial institutions across a broad spectrum of contentious regulatory, litigation and arbitration matters.
Highlights since joining the firm in April 2021 include advising:
- Danske Bank in relation to investigations by US and Danish criminal and regulatory authorities regarding issues arising out of its former Estonian branch. This resulted in a US$2 billion global resolution with the US Department of Justice, the US Securities and Exchange Commission and Danish criminal authorities in December 2022. This matter was nominated for the Most Important Development of the Year at the Global Investigations Review 2023 awards
- Credit Suisse in its defence to claims brought in the English High Court by the Republic of Mozambique arising out of the US$2 billion financing of state tuna fishery and maritime security projects in the Republic of Mozambique between 2013 and 2016. In addition, Credit Suisse counterclaimed in relation to defaulted loans. The claims were settled in October 2022
- Santander in relation to an application for a collective proceedings order in the Competition Appeal Tribunal regarding the use of discretionary commission arrangements for brokers in the motor finance industry
- A global financial institution on an internal investigation into IT related issues
- A global financial institution on potential misselling claims in relation to investments in high profile funds
- Deutsche Bank in the first general LIBOR claim against multiple banks (as opposed to individual LIBOR mis-selling claims) in England
- UK Asset Resolution Limited, Northern Rock Limited and other group companies on a number of actual and threatened public and private law claims
Gayathri is recognised as a Next Generation Partner in Legal 500 2024, Banking Litigation: Investment and Retail and Financial Services: Contentious. She is also listed as a key lawyer by Legal 500 2024 for Regulatory Investigations and Corporate Crime.
Gayathri was listed in the Global Investigation Review Top 100 Women in Investigations 2021 and was nominated for Investigations Professional of the Year at the GIR 2023 awards for her work in relation to Danske Bank.
Clients describe Gayathri as an “exceptional adviser: her temperament, judgement, experience and knowledge make her absolutely the sort of person you need guiding an organisation in difficult times”. Legal 500 2024, Banking Litigation: Investment and Retail.
Sources also note they were “extremely impressed with her strategic thinking, strong overview, sense of detail and impressive ability to get a lot of work done in a short period of time” Legal 500 2024, Financial Services: Contentious.
Gayathri is “an exceptional investigations lawyer” who “truly understands financial products and services and the complexities of modern financial institutions” and has “exceptional interpersonal skills enabling her to operate across diverse stakeholders”. Legal 500 2022, Regulatory Investigations and Corporate Crime.
Gayathri plays a lead role in the firm’s Diversity and Inclusion initiatives and was named an EMpower 100 Executives Role Model in May 2022, May 2023 and May 2024.