
Financial services
We’re trusted counsel on conduct and prudential matters to financial services and market participants, including manufacturers, distributors and purchasers of financial products and suppliers of associated technologies and other services. Our clients include established institutions and participants, and new entrants to financial services markets.
Sectors in which our clients operate include banking, capital markets, consumer credit, fintech, financial services assets, funds and investment management, life and non-life insurance, private equity, payment services and electronic money.
Our work covers the income / capital-generating (e.g. customer-facing) activities of firms, as well as their ‘own account’ issues, and all the associated commercial and corporate operations in both cases. Any of these may have implications for firms’ conduct, capital, operational resilience and regulator relationships. We handle arbitration and litigation involving financial services firms and advise on the regulatory ramifications.
We also advise on environmental, social and governance (ESG) sustainability and responsibility matters, which are increasingly subject to regulatory requirements and investor demands.
Clients’ income / capital-generating activities on which we advise include acting for UK banking groups on commercial loan transactions, and acting for private equity investors.
Working closely with clients’ compliance, legal and risk teams, we have extensive experience in advising on own account issues for financial services clients, addressing issues across the spectrum of regulatory supervision and enforcement processes and procedures, including the ‘controllers’ (change in control) regime, investigations and notifications, the ‘senior managers and certification regime’ (SMCR), ‘Solvency II’, ‘skilled person’ reports, and whistleblowing.
Featured experience
Banking
We represent a major challenger bank on its HR and employment issues, and have also advised on enhancing its senior employee risk management programme, including via its UK D&O coverage.
Consumer credit
We advised a household-name consumer goods business on a strategic project to distribute, as an appointed representative, credit products alongside sales of goods. This was a significant new departure for the client and involved extensive work on policies and procedures, including as to contractual governance, financial promotions and IT systems and controls, and customer-facing documents.
Fintech
We have advised an innovative high-growth payment institution about the impact of the safeguarding regulations on its novel business model and assisted it with relevant elements of its FCA authorisation application.
FS assets, funds and investment sectors
We advised a leading supplier of IT-based analytics for fund performance on its contractual terms with an authorised investment manager, protecting commercial rights and interests but without risking any undertaking of regulated activity.
Related products, services and sectors
Key contacts

Jonathan Newbold
Partner

Helen Simm
Partner

Jeremy Irving
Partner

Jon Snade
Partner

Gareth Davies
Partner

Emma Hinton
Partner
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