McDermott Will & Emery has hired Mayer Brown’s former Paris head of investigations to co-head its global investigations and compliance group. 

Nicolette Kost De Sèvres has joined McDermott in Paris after almost six years at Mayer Brown, prior to which she was a partner at DLA Piper in Washington DC. She brings more 20 years of experience in compliance, white-collar crime and financial regulation, including at the NYSE Euronext in New York and Paris and the Royal Bank of Scotland in London. 

“Nicolette is a top-rated practitioner with an excellent reputation in the industry, and she is an outstanding strategic thinker. As such, she will be able to provide the highest level of support to our clients’ growing compliance needs,” said Steve Scholes, head of McDermott’s disputes practice. 

Kost De Sèvres will lead McDermott’s investigations and compliance team alongside London partner Simon Airey, who noted the firm’s cross-border work would benefit from her extensive international experience. 

Before joining the NYSE Euronext in 2009, Kost De Sèvres had a two-year stint as general counsel for corporate affairs at listed tourism company Transat AT in Montreal and earlier spent several years working for financial institutions and regulators in Quebec, where she chaired both the Young Bar of Montreal and the Quebec chapter of the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association.

Expert in the full range of compliance issues from Canadian, US, UK and EU perspectives, her experience spans complex multinational bribery and corruption cases, cases involving allegations of money laundering and related investigations, as well as managing any regulatory response. 

She also advises clients on risk management and transactional due diligence, thus minimising potential contractual and supply chain risk. 

She has represented clients in audits, investigations and regulatory proceedings in France and the EU as well as Canada and the US, including linked proceedings, acting both as an advocate and an advisor to a primarily corporate audience of banks and related financial institutions. That includes a background in fintech – she co-headed DLA Piper’s global fintech practice during her time at the firm – and growing awareness of how white-collar issues bleed into ESG obligations across all mainstream business sectors.  

Kost De Sèvres said she was “truly excited about contributing to the trajectory of [McDermott’s] global investigations and compliance practice”. 

Hers is the latest in a spate of recent European hires for McDermott, which bolstered its private equity bench in Paris last month with a team hire from Dentons and added corporate partner duo Rolf Hünermann and Philip Schmidt from Reed Smith in Frankfurt in November.