Herbert Smith Freehills bolsters transactional tax capabilities with new Australian partner

Herbert Smith Freehills will welcome James Pettigrew as a partner in the firm’s growing tax advisory practice in Sydney. Commencing at Herbert Smith Freehills later in the year, James joins from Deloitte, where he was the national leader of its M&A and Financial Services tax practice groups.

James is a senior tax expert with more than 30 years of experience advising clients on large scale domestic and in-bound M&A transactions, alongside outbound fund structuring and capital management, and their unique tax considerations. James regularly advises clients in the financial services, real estate and infrastructure sectors.

Prior to joining Deloitte, he spent over 20 years at Greenwoods, HSF’s former affiliate tax advisory firm.

Carolyn Pugsley, Herbert Smith Freehills Managing Partner for Corporate, said “We are focussed on the needs of our clients, who select HSF because of our reputation for delivering on the largest and most innovative transactions in the market.

“We need practitioners like James who can provide expert guidance on the myriad of taxation considerations.

“We are excited to welcome James to Herbert Smith Freehills as a strategic advisor in our growing tax advisory practice.

“His appointment reflects our ambitious growth plans for our commercial tax offering in Australia. We want to build a market-leading practice in this space and we plan to increase our bench strength with more partner hires.

“James’ addition is the next step in this plan to align our market-leading transaction offering with the full suite of complementary specialisations including stamp duty and tax disputes expertise that our clients expect from a full-service firm, such as ours.”

James Pettigrew commented: “I am very much looking forward to joining HSF as a tax partner and working with everyone to build a respected tax practice that further enhances HSF’s existing trusted brand in the market place for legal services”.

James is the latest partner to join Herbert Smith Freehills in Australia and builds out the tax experts including Toby Eggleston, Nick Heggart and Ryan Leslie who joined the partnership in June 2022 to work alongside Jinny Chaimungkalanont an expert in stamp duty and Hugh Paynter an expert in tax disputes.