The firm’s financial lines team was spotlighted in the recent round of promotions
Wotton + Kearney has expanded its partnership to 41 with four new Australian additions.
Charu Stevenson, Dean Pinto and Robert Finnigan are part of the financial lines team in Sydney, while Scott Macoun is part of the general liability practice in Brisbane.
Stevenson is a specialist in various liability matters, including those involving the environment and directors and officers. She heads up the firm’s environmental liability product focus group.
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She is also an expert in construction professional indemnity, and serves as coverage and defence counsel in class actions, ASIC and ACCC investigations and liquidators’ examinations. She also acts in claims arising out of pollution incidents involving contaminants like asbestos, and in claims against engineers, architects, principal certifying authorities, interior designers and other construction professionals.
Pinto focuses on financial lines products related to directors and officers, professional indemnity and coverage in the London and Australian markets. He has handled complex shareholder class actions, regulatory investigations by ASIC and the AFP and financial services remediation schemes.
He is experienced with regard to investigating, managing and resolving various professional indemnity claims, and has advised on complex coverage matters. He has monitored and provided advice to insurers on strategy to facilitate the resolution of coverage disputes.
Finnigan has a wealth of experience in dealing with property, energy, construction and professional risk matters. He has defended complex litigated claims and conducted subrogated recovery actions in all jurisdictions in the country. In addition, he handles defamation and commercial litigation issues.
His clients include both local and global insurers, major corporations, engineers, architects and quantity surveyors. He has acted as coverage counsel in significant infrastructure claims in other countries as well, including Asia, Africa and South America.
Macoun is a specialist in public liability and in navigating pre-court procedures pursuant to the Personal Injuries Proceedings Act 2002. He is experienced in handling general liability insurance litigation in all applicable Queensland legislative regimes.
He counts among his clients a wide range of London market underwriters, TPAs and private and publicly listed companies with large self-insured retentions. He has acted in multimillion-dollar catastrophic injury claims, multi-party claims in several industries, accident and health coverage disputes and engineering/construction professional complaint and regulatory matters.
Wotton + Kearney also strengthened its roster of special counsel with the promotion of financial lines lawyers Thomas Cavanagh (Sydney) and Ronald Mok (Brisbane) and the hire of Grant Covington. Covington is a 20-year veteran with specialisation in financial lines and financial institutions claims, having worked with a number of major insurers and Lloyd’s Syndicates on personal indemnity and directors and officers claims.
In addition, the firm elevated Alycia Amanatidis (financial lines, Melbourne), Chris Knight (financial lines, Sydney), Tim Holmes (property and energy, Sydney), Sarah Mellowes (financial lines, Sydney) and Matt O’Donnell (financial lines, Brisbane) to the senior associate position.
These appointments came into effect on 1 July. In total, the firm promoted 13 lawyers across its Australia and New Zealand offices.
“These promotions reflect Wotton + Kearney’s ability to offer our clients deeper expertise by growing our ranks of senior specialists in key insurance lines,” CEP David Kearney said. “We are delighted to welcome Charu, Dean, Robert and Scott as partners and congratulate all our new senior lawyers on their well-deserved promotions, which are recognition of their talents and continued commitment to their clients. I am also pleased to welcome Grant to the firm.”
Charu Stevenson
Dean Pinto
Robert Finnigan
Scott Macoun