Farmida Bi > Norton Rose Fulbright > London, England > Lawyer Profile

Acting on its own as well as leveraging a strong presence in Dubai, the ‘responsive and efficient’ team at Norton Rose Fulbright is well-placed to provide an ‘excellent service’ to conventional and Islamic banks, sovereigns and corporates across a range of Shariah-compliant structures used to facilitate transactions, including in areas of firmwide sector strength such as energy and transport. Team head Farmida Bi has vast transactional expertise in capital markets-related Islamic finance work in particular, as well as being at the forefront of thought leadership, including within the context of utilising Islamic finance to promote sustainable goals. Yusuf Battiwala is also extremely well-versed at handling capital markets work, particularly in the derivatives and structured finance space, where he is able to provide ‘invaluable insights into market practices while also being able to assist in creating novel products’. Andrew Coote is a key member of the team who regularly advises issuers and underwriters on sukuk listings, as well as handling innovative Islamic finance mandates including Shariah-compliant cryptocurrency transactions.

Norton Rose Fulbright is highly regarded for the breadth of its DCM practice, which handles project bonds, debt restructuring, corporate trust matters, Islamic Finance,  Canadian issuance, and sovereign bond offerings. The group led by Peter Young, who handles debt transactions under both English and New York law, is ‘technically strong and pragmatic, and provides real-time practical advice‘.  Young recently acted for a major development finance institution as the initial purchaser of two large emerging market ESG-linked bonds, showing the firm’s prominent position in the sustainable finance market. EMEA chair Farmida Bi is a key adviser on Islamic finance, while Peter Noble is best known for advising Canadian issuers and their dealers in the international debt markets. He recently acted for a Canadian bank on $25bn in issuance its EMTN and global covered bonds programmes. Corporate trust specialist Kirstin Russell and Andrew Coote, whose work includes project bonds and sukuk, also play key roles in the practice.