HFW boosts global competition offering with senior London hire

Global, sector-focused law firm HFW has boosted its regulatory practice with the hire of senior competition lawyer Emma Thomas.

Emma has 20 years’ experience of competition law matters, and joins HFW’s London office from Direct Line Group, where she was Head of Competition and Anti-Bribery. She was previously Senior Legal Counsel at Barclays and also held roles at Clifford Chance and on secondment at Shell.

Alex Kyriakoulis, Global Head of Corporate & Commercial, HFW:

“Emma is an outstanding lawyer with extensive experience advising Boards and C-level leadership on sensitive and complex competition law issues, and brings invaluable client-side perspective as a former in-house counsel, which is really important to how we work at HFW. As well as supporting clients across our core sectors on competition and anti-bribery, we also see opportunities for Emma to work alongside our leading corporate insurance team, given her industry background. We’re very pleased to welcome her to the firm.”

Emma advises clients on a wide range of contentious and non-contentious matters relating to competition, anti-bribery and corruption, and financial crime. She also advises clients on compliance training and managing teams.

Emma Thomas, Legal Director, HFW:

“I am delighted to be joining HFW and look forward to working with such a well-respected and high-performing team.”

Emma’s arrival continues a period of sustained expansion for HFW globally that has made it one of the fastest-growing law firms in the market.

HFW has added more than 50 new partners since the beginning of FY23, including team and partner hires in Hong Kong, Kuwait City, London, Melbourne, Paris, Perth, Piraeus, Riyadh, Singapore, and Sydney.

The firm also established a new entity in Saudi Arabia to continue the growth of its leading Middle East offering, and launched an office in Shenzhen to support its clients in China’s Greater Bay Area.

HFW was recently voted UK Law Firm of the Year at the British Legal Awards – one of the industry’s top honours.