Australian firm Mills Oakley has hired Shaun Whittaker and Tony Rutherford, former directors at Big Four accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, as partners in Melbourne – the latest moves in the ongoing battle for talent between the Big Four accounting firms and law firms in Australia.

Whittaker specialises in funding solutions, which includes structured finance, infrastructure and energy, fintech services, non-bank lending and stakeholder advisory. He joins Mills Oakley directly from PwC Australia, where he was a legal director focusing on the finance, energy, property and infrastructure sectors for two years.