Clifford Chance
Kate Scott specialises in financial services and technology litigation, with particular expertise in follow-on litigation from regulatory investigations and cross-border matters.
Kate's focus is advising clients (particularly Financial Services and Fintech clients) on managing their portfolio of contentious matters. She is recognised in Legal 500 as both a Next Generation Litigation Partner, and for her Fintech and Data, Privacy and Cybersecurity work. Her practice and experience spans litigation (typically defending complex claims), alongside risk management and governance advice, to help her clients prevent disputes arising in the first place.
Kate's banking disputes experience encompasses a wide variety of investment banking products: credit linked notes, credit default swaps, FX derivatives, structured notes and interest rate hedging products, to name a few. Recent work includes acting on alleged LIBOR misrepresentation claims, advising several banks on coronavirus-related financing disputes and defending Quincecare claims.
Kate is also a specialist in Fintech litigation, advising both financial institutions and disruptors in the financial services industry on the civil risks arising from their use of data, new payments platforms, outsourcing, cryptocurrencies, cyber and their use of artificial intelligence (as well as being published in a number of external publications on such topics). Her speciality is defending collective data actions, where she is actively working with data and privacy experts to ensure that the question of "what is personal data worth" is properly addressed by the English courts in this emerging area of law.
Having previously been seconded as the EMEA Head of Litigation for a global bank, Kate also has a deep understanding of the challenges our clients' face.
Kate is active in using new techniques and technology to manage large scale litigation more efficiently for her clients, such as KIRA and Technology Assisted Review, and recently developed a platform to enable a bank to manage and monitor a portfolio of litigation spanning 5 jurisdictions.
Banking Litigation:
- Advice to several global financial institutions on IBOR transition litigation and conduct risks
- Managing a portfolio of matters for a global bank arising from LIBOR investigations to ensure a coordinated defence strategy in the UK and beyond
- Representing a specialist financial services provider in connection with various payments disputes
- Advising a multinational corporate under investigation by multiple agencies to prepare for likely follow-on litigation in multiple jurisdictions, in parallel with remediating affecting clients
- Advising a global institution in connection with a SWIFT fraud dispute, dealing with complex choice of law and jurisdictional issues, and coordinating parallel proceedings in Asia and in the English High Court
- Acting for a global bank in relation to Icelandic proceedings arising out of a credit-linked note transaction with an insolvent Icelandic bank
Fintech:
- Civil data claims, including UK and EU data complaint / claims handling strategies and data injunctions (e.g. following a cyber incident or in relation to data scraping)
- Advice regarding the data and human rights risks arising out of the deployment of facial recognition technology, "return to work" tech in the context of COVID-19, and artificial intelligence use by financial institutions
- Data and cyber incident response – both in terms of breach response planning and managing live incidents, including for several technology companies and regulated firms
- Operational resilience compliance, with a particular focus on contract enhancements
- IT and outsourcing disputes
- Cryptocurrency advice, including assessing the litigation risk of an Initial Token Offering including potential English law civil claims
- M&A disputes for various global technology companies
News and client work
Contact details
- Clifford Chance, London
- +442070064442
- Email me
- Speaks English and French
- Practice area Litigation, dispute resolution & risk management
- Sector Banks, Transport & logistics
Career and qualifications
- St John's College, Cambridge (MA, Law) 2003
- Legal Assistant to Diana Wallis MEP at the European Parliament (particularly with respect to the Rome II Regulation) 2004
- Joined Clifford Chance 2005
- Admitted as solicitor in England and Wales 2007
- Seconded to a leading global financial services firm 2010
- Seconded to a global bank as Acting Head of EME Litigation 2015
- Partner since 2019
Professional bodies
- Member of the Operating Committee of the International Law Book Facility
- London Solicitor Litigation Association
Awards and citations
- Kate Scott is a new partner who is carving out a real niche in technology disputes.
Legal 500 UK 2022 - Data Protection, Privacy and Cybersecurity – Tier 3