Financial services

Working closely with the firm’s other core sector groups, we deliver financial services legal advice and solutions for both users and providers. These are tailored to the specific needs of those sectors, whether real estate, shipping, wealth management, education or technology.

Our banking and finance team acts for a large number of UK and overseas banks, assisting in the structuring and documentation of their various finance transactions and steering them through even the most complex of deals. As their trusted advisers, we ensure that our clients can address the pace of change and numerous demands that the current dynamic financial services sector presents.

For fintech start-ups and new market entrants, we advise on fundraising and financing, the contractual and regulatory aspects of financial services, and related data protection and cyber security issues, enabling them to focus more closely on the development of their products and services. Our team is also increasingly engaged to help established market participants meet the challenges to their business models from fintech companies and other disrupters by dealing with the impact of technological change on legacy systems, developing their own fintech, or pairing up with start-ups.

We also give financial regulatory support to clients – particularly in our core areas of real estate, trade and commodity and project financing – to ensure they are well placed to handle the risk and compliance environment in which their services are delivered. This includes our employment lawyers advising on the Senior Managers and Certification Regime and potential breaches, as well as managing compliance reviews and addressing regulatory requirements through insurance and other qualifying credit risk mitigants. The rapid growth of regulation means visits, investigations and enforcement action by regulators are a common part of life for financial services firms; our team is experienced in guiding clients through these processes and in liaising with regulators.

We have a wealth of experience in bringing and defending contractual and non-contractual claims, including claims arising from syndicated lending, trade, commodity and project financing, related derivatives contracts and from digital assets including cryptocurrencies. We have also brought and defended claims for the mis-selling of financial services.

While technological change and innovation are the source of motivation to many businesses and organisations, we recognise that they also drive fraudsters and other criminals to ever-more creative and complex means of exploiting these developing technologies. Our specialists assist clients who have been cyber attacked, combat fraud, and recover assets lost through misappropriation.