K&L Gates hired Howard Goldwasser and Xavier Ruiz for its New York office as partners in the finance and corporate practices, respectively.
Goldwasser was previously at Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle. For close to two decades, Goldwasser has been lead counsel to domestic and international investment and commercial banks, hedge and private equity funds, investment managers, and investors in complex transactional and debt capital markets matters. These include structured financings and securitizations, structured-credit and credit-derivative deals, secured and unsecured commercial loan offerings, project and asset-based financings, and commercial real estate financing issues, among others.
Additionally, he is one of a small group of U.S. lawyers to have pioneered the covered-bond programs for North American issuers and advised on similar programs for potential Latin American issuers. Goldwasser was formerly a partner at Allen & Overy and was managing partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe's Tokyo office where he was also the lead partner for the firm’s Asia structured finance practice.
Meanwhile, Ruiz was previously at Spain’s largest law firm Garrigues where he led its U.S. practice. Admitted in New York and Spain, he advises corporations on cross-border mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and finance deals, as well as on privatizations and concessions with a Latin America and Spain focus.
Ruiz also regularly counsels Spanish firms operating in the U.S., and serves as chairman to the Board of Directors of the Spain-U.S. Chamber of Commerce in New York. Previously, he headed the Spanish and Latin American practices of two international law firms via their New York offices.
"We are delighted to add Howard and Xavier as partners in our New York office,” Elwood F. Collins said, administrative partner at K&L Gates’ New York office. “Their collective legal and geographic experience, with practices that span the U.S., Asia, Europe, and Latin America, nicely parallels our firm’s global platform, and will serve our clients well.”
