Tony Watts > Keystone Law > London, England > Lawyer Profile

Tony Watts

020 7152 6550 tony.watts@keystonelaw.co.uk

Work Department

Financial services and FSMA regulation.

Position

Tony is a true financial services and banking specialist. He has held senior legal positions at a range of household names including Barclays Wealth where he was co-head of legal. Since 2007 he has been in private practice, specialising in financial services law and FSMA regulation. He has wide experience of advising financial services businesses in both wholesale and retail sectors including exchanges and trading platforms; securities firms; banks; investment managers; corporate finance firms; retail financial advisers and intermediaries (including wealth managers and mortgage firms). A significant part of his work invovles him working closely with the law firm to provide expert financial services support. He is often asked to comment in the media on regulatory issues and is a contributor to Lexis Nexis. Tony is well-known as a lecturer on financial services regulation to audiences of lawyers and financial services professionals. Tony’s areas of expertise include current knowledge of UK and EU developments (including mortage credit directive, MIFID 2 and Alternative Fund Managers Directive); perimeter issues (ie what falls within the regulatory net for financial services or regulated credit regulation); innovative business models (eg crowd funding where he is particularly well-known advisory businesses such as Abundance Generation and UK Bond Network); obtaining authorisation and upgrade of regulatory permissions; issues involving financial promotions; ongoing regulatory advice; regulatory investigations and enforcement; employment-related issues (including problems related to approved persons and senior managers/certification regimes and FCA/PRA); questions relating to market abuse and market conduct; terms and conditions complying with regulatory and consumer law requirements for retail and other clients; investment management agreements; fund documentation and set-up; other financial services agreements including appointed representative agreements; introducer agreements, agency and distribution agreements; banking law and regulation including mortgage regulation; payment services and conduct of business requirements; lending and security; unfair contract terms legislation and other consumer law objectives. He has sucessfully advised clients on FCA investigations and enforcement and has qualified as a Higher Rights Advocate (Civil).

Career

Qualified 1983; Government Legal Service including OFT legal department, 1983-88; Bank of Scotland legal department, 1988-89; Nat West Legal, 1989-97; Mitsubishi Trust Bank, 1997-2001; Kleinwort Benson, 2001-02; Barclays Wealth, 2002-07.