Paul Matthews, a leading corporate defence and regulatory specialist, has been appointed by Clarion to head up its growing regulatory team which supports Clarion’s hundreds of commercial clients nationally and internationally from its headquarters in Leeds.

Paul, who joins after eight years as partner at DWF, will be providing advice, support and representation to organisations and their boards of directors in relation to regulatory investigations and prosecutions by regulators such as the Health & Safety Executive, the Environment Agency, local authorities and the police, amongst others.

Paul’s experience and expertise also includes providing advice on meeting the challenges of the various regulatory and compliance frameworks expected of businesses in the UK, preparing organisations on their resilience to deal with a crisis or major regulatory incident should it occur, and supporting organisations with complex internal or external investigations. As well as reactive practice, Paul will also advise companies and their senior management on strategic regulatory compliance matters including strategic risk management support, director’s duties, crisis management, accident impact and response, audit, plus training and coaching.

Matthew Hattersley, partner and head of Clarion’s commercial practice, comments: “We launched our regulatory team in October 2019, and it has gone from strength to strength, supporting clients when, despite their best efforts, a regulatory breach occurs.

“With the increasing burden of regulation, and businesses in many sectors seeking preventative as well as protective legal advice, we have a priority to invest in growing the regulatory team. Paul is the perfect person to lead our regulatory team, he has a track record of growing and developing teams, he is ranked as a leading individual in this area of law and has a solid reputation for responding and dealing with high impact, high profile incidents for clients. We are very pleased that whilst we selected Paul, he equally selected us and he is already proving a great fit with the inclusive, proactive and commercial Clarion culture.”

Paul’s experience spans corporate manslaughter, health and safety, environmental liabilities, food safety and trading law, advertising and marketing compliance, bribery and corruption He has worked for large retailers and household names including Kwik Fit and also worked on the public enquiry for the Grenfell Tower disaster.

Paul Matthews, partner at Clarion’s regulatory practice, said: “A company’s most valuable assets are usually its people and its reputation. We are at the forefront of protecting that reputation when a crisis occurs and in supporting its people. Clarion are very clear that they want to build a leading team capable of supporting the increasing number of businesses that want to ensure regulatory and reputational risk is given strategic consideration at board level, training clients in managing risk, but also acting as their trusted advisor if a regulatory issues arises.”

Paul added: “I’ve been impressed with Clarion’s growth and with ambitions plans to grow the firm even more in the coming years.  I am also impressed with the high quality of its national client base, and now is a great time to join the team.”