Our firm has long experience in the financial sector where over the years it has been at the forefront of many new developments and been involved in many significant transactions and cases. Our broader Financial Services team is an integrated group of more than 30 lawyers with extensive and deep financial sector knowledge and experience working across the different divisions in the firm.
The team acts for a broad spread of UK and foreign banks and other financial institutions, specialised lenders, managers, funds, market institutions, public sector bodies and others active in the sector.
Our work covers the full breadth of activities of those involved in the financial sector – from the establishment of relevant businesses, through their regulation, systems, documentation and operations, to resolving their disputes and problems and acting for those dealing with financial sector entities.
While dealing with this full breadth of financial sector activities, our practice is particularly notable for:
- Our systems review, risk mitigation, investigations and “financial crime” experience, with regulator-side insight
- The close integration on financial sector operations of our IT/IP and regulatory skills on the likes of origination and reporting systems
- Our expertise on Scottish angles on technical issues, such as shari’a lending, netting or financial collateral and their regulatory consequences
- The strength of our Scottish-based team, coupled with our London presence
Our broader Financial Services team is divided into a Financial Products & Services team (led by Hamish Patrick) within our Banking & Finance team, a Financial Regulation and Enforcement team within our Commercial Disputes & Regulation division and a Financial Operations team (led by Paul Carlyle) within our Corporate & Commercial team, with the optimal mix of skills and resources across the teams being identified and matched to each assignment to ensure that it is completed to the highest of standards, on time and within budget. This may involve input from further specialists on areas such as tax, pensions, transactional banking, insolvency, enforcement, real estate, private client or other parts of the firm.
The work carried out by our Financial Products and Services Team includes:
Standard residential mortgage documents for numerous prime and secondary lenders
- Sharia compliant standard retail mortgage and account documents for leading providers
- Standard investment portfolio-backed lending documents for leading private bank
- Standard corporate lending and real estate finance documents for several funders
- Standard asset finance and dealer finance documents for clearing, specialist and captive banks
- Supply chain finance analysis and documentation for established institutions and new entrants
- Advising financial markets participants on market charges
- Investment management and custody agreements
Commercial account pooling documentation and regulatory opinions for high street banks
- Regulatory opinions on standard form security and asset finance documentation
- Regulatory and market opinions on netting and financial collateral
- Pathfinder mortgage and numerous other Bank of England Discount Window Facility pre-positioning’s
- CASS analysis of securities holding system for major institution
- Consumer regulation borderline and exemption analysis and related documentation for lenders
- Consumer regulation, systems and enforceability analysis for lenders
- Financial crisis work involving several central banks, state “bad banks” and state support programmes
Intra-group portfolio re-organisations, including mortgage, asset finance and derivatives books
- Implementing systems-driven changes to corporate loan terms and migration to new terms
- Origination systems reviews for numerous securitisations of all types
- Personal guarantee process review for clearing bank
- Mortgage Credit Directive implementation project with leading funder
