Simmons & Simmons

Thomas is a partner in our Munich office. His practice focuses on counselling and representation in patent litigation, trade secrets litigation and other tech-related litigation. In particular, his expertise comprises litigating patents in the fields of telecommunications, video, audio and voice coding, IT, hardware and software, consumer electronics, automotive, mechanics, 3D printing, metal manufacturing, medical devices as well as biotech; regularly including standard essential patents (SEP). Further, Thomas advises on technology related know-how and trade secrets protection. He gives advice on the licensing of patents and IP rights, on employee inventions law and on technology related unfair competition and anti-trust law (SEP/FRAND). He helps clients manage risks and arriving at practical solutions without involving the courts. Also, Thomas has a wealth of experience in providing comprehensive freedom-to-operate (FTO) analyses and representing clients in complex out-of-court negotiation scenarios.

Peter has specialised in intellectual property law and competition law matters for more than 20 years. His expertise covers all contentious and non-contentious issues of intellectual property and antitrust law. Peter's particular focus is on international and national patent litigation, and advising on antitrust law questions at the interface with IP rights. Peter's clients are mainly from the life sciences and TMT sectors. They include a major European life sciences company, a US medical device manufacturer as well as Asian and US electronics, telecom and IT companies. Peter is a registered representative before the Unified Patent Court (UPC), which became operational on 1 June 2023.

Fritz is a European and German Patent attorney. He represents his clients in all fields of intellectual property with an emphasis on patent prosecution and opposition, nullity and infringement proceedings. Specifically, in recent years, he has gained extensive experience in multinational infringement proceedings, where he represents his clients before the German Federal Patent Court, the German infringement courts as well as before the opposition divisions and appeal boards of the European Patent Office. Since he is also responsible for establishing and coordinating the patent strategy of large patent portfolios, he has developed a deep insight into all aspects of patent prosecution. This includes also the provision of validity and infringement opinions. His clients include start-up companies, universities as well as large multinational companies. Due to his scientific education in the fields of immunology and neurobiology, he primarily works in the technical fields of biotechnology, chemistry and pharma, with an emphasis on handling antibody-related cases.

Stephanie Nottrott

Stephanie has profound expertise in handling global patent and trademark portfolios. Her clients include small and medium-sized biotech businesses, universities and companies in the pharmaceutical and nanotechnology industry. Stephanie provides qualified advice in the area of patent and trademark law with particular focus on national and international prosecution proceedings as well as the defence and enforcement of protective rights against third parties. In light of her proven scientific expertise in the field of protein-RNA biology, she particularly focuses on the area of life sciences including biochemistry, molecular biology, genetic engineering and medical devices. Stephanie has long-standing experience in successfully representing clients in opposition and appeal proceedings before the European Patent Office, the German Patent and Trade Mark Office and the European Union Intellectual Property Office. In patent litigation proceedings, she protects clients' interests before the German civil courts in collaboration with our patent litigators. Her work includes freedom-to-operate analysis and validity opinions. Stephanie is a registered representative before the Unified Patent Court (UPC), which became operational on 1 June 2023. In addition she is admitted to practice before the German Patent and Trademark Office, the European Patent Office, the Federal Patent Court, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the European Union Intellectual Property Office.

James specialises in advising asset managers on the establishment and ongoing maintenance of investment vehicles. He has significant experience assisting clients with the establishment of a variety of fund types, ranging from broadly offered retail funds to private funds aimed at small groups of sophisticated investors and family offices, across every major asset class, liquid and illiquid, and also in respect of digital assets. James has advised in relation to the establishment of funds structured as companies, unit trusts, limited partnerships, common contractual funds, as well as umbrella fund structures and master feeder structures. He has advised in relation to the establishment of investment structures domiciled in a number of jurisdictions including Ireland, Luxembourg, the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda and Hong Kong and has advised managers based in a variety of jurisdictions including the U.K, the U.S., Ireland, the E.U., Switzerland, Latin America, Hong Kong, the People’s Republic of China, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan.

Paul is an Of Counsel with Simmons & Simmons. Prior to that role Paul was a partner of Simmons & Simmons from 1998 to 2019, having joined the firm in London as a trainee in 1989. During that period he has held several senior management positions, including Head of Asia from 2011 onwards. In that role Paul was responsible for the firm’s business in Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Singapore and Tokyo. In addition to his management responsibilities Paul also maintained a fee earning role. His area of specialty is financial markets regulation where he was active in relation to transactional work, advising on regulatory enforcement issues and defending FIs in connection with mis-selling disputes. Most recently his focus has been to advise clients on the migration of their bricks and mortar businesses on to digital platforms. His work has given Paul the practical experience of managing teams across practice disciplines and jurisdictions. He first became interested in financial markets regulation, when he started as a trainee solicitor just five months after the Financial Services Act came into force in the UK. At the time it was regarded as a new area of law. Realising, at an early stage, the importance of regulation as a specialism, he played an key role in establishing Simmons’ specialist contentious regulatory team in London in 1995 (after a period on secondment to the predecessor of the FCA) and their HK funds and regulatory practice when he transferred to Hong Kong in 2000 He has been involved in a led teams in connection with a number of notable transactions / investigations. Examples of which, involving interaction with the SFC, include the authorisation of the first private sector ETF, the authorisation first synthetic ETF and the Market Misconduct Tribunal in connection with CITIC Pacific.

Fiona is widely recognised as one of the most experienced labour law specialists in the region, having been one of the first solicitors in Hong Kong to specialise in this legal area. With her more than 35 years of experience, there are few types of employment law problem or scenario which she has not encountered. Fiona founded the firm’s Employment practice in Asia, and advises on all aspects of the employment relationship. She deals with the cross-border labour needs of many clients and, in addition to handling Hong Kong cases and matters, is closely involved in the Singapore and mainland China arms of the practice. She works on regional projects and investigations, and on both contentious and advisory matters. Fiona has received multiple individual recognitions since the late 1990s to date. She has been, for many years, recognised as a Band 1 lawyer and Leading Individual for Employment Law in Hong Kong by Chambers Asia-Pacific, and is ranked in the Hall of Fame of legal practitioners for Labour and Employment in Hong Kong by Legal 500 Asia-Pacific. Her Hong Kong team has also been consistently ranked as a Tier 1 practice by Legal 500 Asia-Pacific since 2001, and Band 1 by Chambers Asia-Pacific since 2008, following the launch of the directory in the region. Fiona has chaired, for two two-year terms, and continues to sit on, the Employment Law Committee of the Hong Kong Law Society. Fiona headed the firm’s Hong Kong office during 2013-2021, and was a member of the firm’s board from 2013 until February 2022. She is a trustee of the firm’s Charitable Foundation, an active member of its Pro Bono committee and The Number One Club (TNOC), the firm’s women’s network. Fiona is a hands on practitioner and extremely interested in mentoring more junior lawyers; many in-house lawyers based in Hong Kong have worked with Fiona over the past three decades. Fiona was admitted as a solicitor in England in 1985, in Hong Kong in 1987 and in Australia (ACT) in 1990, and has been registered in Singapore as a foreign lawyer since 2020.

Sarah is a partner in the firm’s Asia employment practice, based in London. She is admitted as a solicitor in both Hong Kong and England & Wales. Sarah operates the “Asia Desk” for the firm’s international employment practice, from London, supporting clients on their Hong Kong and Asia employment law needs. Sarah specialises in advising clients on their most sensitive employment law matters, with particular focus on the financial institution and asset management sectors. She advises on all aspects of the employment relationship, including drafting employment contracts and staff handbooks, bonus and remuneration arrangements, negotiated terminations, the employment aspects of internal and regulatory investigations, employment data privacy, strategic issues associated with reorganisations and restructuring, discrimination and harassment, and employment disputes. Sarah is ranked as a “Leading Individual” for Employment Law by Asia-Pacific Legal 500. She is recognised as “always very calm and provides very pragmatic advice” (Chambers Asia 2022). She is held in high esteem for her “very sensible, prompt and commercial” approach to employment law mandates (Chambers Asia 2021). She is described as a “stand out performer” (Legal 500 Asia 2021). Clients consider her advice “concise, pragmatic and easy to understand,” and describe her responsiveness as “extremely impressive, even within tight deadlines” (Chambers Asia 2019). Sarah is described as “a very seasoned employment lawyer” and provides “commercial and practical advice” to clients (Legal 500 Asia 2019). She is a trusted advisor when significant judgement calls are required or where a bespoke solution is needed. racts and staff handbooks, bonus and remuneration arrangements, negotiated terminations, the employment aspects of internal and regulatory investigations, employment data privacy, strategic issues associated with reorganisations and restructuring, discrimination and harassment, and employment disputes. Sarah is ranked as a “Leading Individual” for Employment Law by Asia-Pacific Legal 500. She is recognised as “always very calm and provides very pragmatic advice” (Chambers Asia 2022). She is held in high esteem for her “very sensible, prompt and commercial” approach to employment law mandates (Chambers Asia 2021). She is described as a “stand out performer” (Legal 500 Asia 2021). Clients consider her advice “concise, pragmatic and easy to understand,” and describe her responsiveness as “extremely impressive, even within tight deadlines” (Chambers Asia 2019). Sarah is described as “a very seasoned employment lawyer” and provides “commercial and practical advice” to clients (Legal 500 Asia 2019). She is a trusted advisor when significant judgement calls are required or where a bespoke solution is needed.

Jingyuan is our head of Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) practice group in Greater China. She is a PRC-qualified lawyer and a practising solicitor in England and Wales. Jingyuan is specialised in data and technology laws. She has supported a large number of TMT companies, life science companies, strategic and financial investors, asset managers, financial institutions and fintech companies on an impressive selection of mandates, including without limitation data compliance, PE/VC and M&A transactions, regulatory and intellectual property. She has been based in Shanghai, Beijing, London, Hong Kong and Shenzhen for her practice. Jingyuan is regularly invited to speak at industrial events. She is also a regular contributor to the Simmons & Simmons website and WeChat account, and for the China chapters of Lexology Getting The Deal Through – Fintech (2017–2024) and Lexology Panoramic Next (formerly known as Market Intelligence) – Privacy and Cybersecurity (2021-2024). Ranked and quoted by Legal 500 Asia and Chambers Asia from 2017 throughout 2023 clients have quoted Jingyuan as being “very strong executive ability, sense of responsibility and great experience”, “super smart, very knowledgeable and proactive”. Jingyuan has lead team to be awarded as the “International TMT Firm of the year” (China Law and Practice Awards 2021). Jingyuan is shortlisted as the Data Privacy Lawyer of the year (Asia Legal Awards 2023); and as leading the M&A Deal of the Year (ALB Hong Kong Law Awards 2024). Jingyuan holds an LLB from Fudan University and an LLM (IP and IT law) from the London School of Economics and Political Science (Distinction). Jingyuan is a member of the firm's Accelerate Digital group, focused on guiding clients through digital transformation.

Ian is a partner in the corporate & commercial group in Hong Kong. He specialises in public and private mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, equity investments and fund raisings. He has a particular focus in the financial institutions and asset management sectors and advises funds on transactions, governance and regulatory matters.

Ivy joined the firm in 2012 and is a funds lawyer focusing on the asset management and investment funds sector. She has extensive experience in a variety of products, from listed and unlisted retail funds to private funds. She also advises on regulatory issues of asset managers. Clients include international institutional managers and other Hong Kong-licensed asset managers, with a focus on managers with a mainland Chinese background.

Jolyon Ellwood-Russell

Jolyon is a banking and finance lawyer with extensive experience in Asia and Europe. Jolyon specialises in debt finance (including banking, acquisition finance and project finance) with a particular focus and reputation in structured trade and commodity finance. He also has experience in financing infrastructure and renewable energy projects.

Tom has a focus in commercial fraud, regulatory investigations & enforcement and audit negligence, having acted in several cases arising out of high-profile corporate collapses. He also has experience in a range of commercial and financial disputes, including those arising from the sale of financial products and services, M&A transactions and joint ventures. He has advised numerous individuals and commercial organisations in responding to investigations and enforcement actions, principally those led by the Hong Kong SFC, Police, FRC and Institute of CPAs. Tom is a recognised individual in Chambers and Legal 500. "Tom is exceptionally bright, identifies the crux of issues quickly, and is equally adept at identifying technical legal arguments and commercial solutions to the most complex cross-border commercial disputes." Tom is a contributing editor of Hong Kong Civil Procedure (‘the White Book’).

John has over 30 years’ experience practising Intellectual Property law in Hong Kong and China. His expertise lies in intellectual property litigation, particularly in respect of trademarks and copyright; implementation of enforcement and anti-piracy programmes; trade mark prosecution and brand strategy and management; IP transactional work including licensing of all types of IP rights, collaboration agreements, R&D agreements and due diligence; and acquisition of IP rights. John is a member of the Asian Patent Attorneys Association and the Hong Kong Institute of Trade Mark Practitioners.

Jenny is a Managing Associate in our Greater China TMT team. She is a PRC-qualified lawyer and a practising solicitor in England and Wales. She works extensively for leading international and domestic TMT sector companies, strategic and financial investors and financial institutions in both advisory and transactional matters. Her primary focus has been advising clients on Chinese and global data compliance issues. Her expertise also covers VC/PE investments, regulatory compliance, intellectual property, as well as cross-border M&A transactions and general corporate matters. She has worked in Beijing, Hong Kong and London and is now based in our Shenzhen office. Jenny is a regular contributor to Simmons & Simmons website, the official Simmons & Simmons WeChat account and for the China chapters of Lexology Getting the Deal Through for FinTech and Telecoms and Media. She is ranked as a Rising Star by Legal 500 Asia Pacific.

David Blumental

David is a highly skilled practitioner specializing in cross-border mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures, joint ventures, private equity investments, project development, and finance. With over 20 years of experience in China and the Asia-Pacific region, along with virtual native fluency in Mandarin, he adeptly bridges cultural and language gaps between Chinese and international parties. In the energy, natural resources, and infrastructure sector, David excels as a seasoned advisor, guiding Asia-based and international clients through diverse cross-border transactions. His expertise includes upstream oil and gas, LNG project development, long-term offtake agreements, FPSO/FSO charters and operating agreements, and other energy transactions and M&A deals. Joining Simmons in 2023, David has received well-deserved recognition for his exceptional skills, earning a prestigious Band 1 ranking by Chambers as a top practitioner in the energy and natural resources field.

Jane is a supervising associate in the Asia employment group. She is involved in both contentious and non-contentious employment matters in Hong Kong. Jane has experience on multiple areas of employment law, including drafting employment documentation such as employment contracts and handbooks, advising on internal investigations, advising on Labour Tribunal claims, as well as advising on bonus schemes, separation, discrimination, harassment, immigration and data privacy issues. Jane has also been involved in employment litigation matters and has worked on a number of multi-jurisdictional employment projects.

Jonathan Hammond

Jonathan is our Asia Regional Head based in our Hong Kong office. Jonathan is a partner in our Financial Markets group specialising in structured products and derivatives. He has advised sell and buy side clients on a variety of asset backed structures and synthetic transactions. In 2018 Jonathan completed a secondment to a major investment bank and in 2019 he worked in our Frankfurt office. Jonathan is a qualified solicitor in England and Wales and Hong Kong.

Wendy is a partner, and the Head of our Asia Employment group. She is an experienced Hong Kong qualified employment lawyer who advises on both contentious and non-contentious matters. Wendy has extensive experience in all areas of employment law, including drafting and reviewing employment contracts, policies and employee handbooks, advising on employment arrangements, including bonus and employee incentive schemes, advising on termination strategies and preparing separation documentation as well as advising on Labour Tribunal claims and investigations conducted by the Equal Opportunities Commission, employment investigations, restrictive covenants, data privacy and discrimination and harassment. Wendy regularly provides training and writes on employment related topics. Wendy has been seconded to our Beijing, Shanghai and London offices. She has also completed client secondments with two major investment banks. Wendy is trilingual and is fluent in English, Cantonese and Mandarin.

Jennifer is a seasoned employment litigator in Hong Kong with substantial experience managing high-profile and complex employment disputes, including enforcement of restrictive covenants, discrimination, harassment, and data privacy cases. Jennifer is a partner in the Asia Employment group. Jennifer is an employment litigator specialises in managing high-profile and complex employment disputes, including cases involving discrimination, harassment, and data privacy. With substantial experience across all levels of Hong Kong courts, from the Labour Tribunal to the Court of Final Appeal, Jennifer is a trusted advisor in contentious employment matters. Jennifer also provides expert guidance to employers on investigations involving the Labour Department, Equal Opportunities Commission, and Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data. Jennifer also advises on HR strategies, such as workforce structuring, changes to employment terms, and enforcement of post-termination restrictions. Jennifer is a strong advocate for workplace well-being, serving as a board member of The City Mental Health Alliance Hong Kong. She is also an Executive Council member of the Hong Kong Institute of Human Resources Management and a People Strategies Committee member of the Employers' Federation of Hong Kong. Jennifer is recognised as a leading employment law practitioner in Hong Kong by The Legal 500 Asia Pacific and Chambers and Partners.

Peter has specialised in intellectual property law and competition law matters for more than 20 years. His expertise covers all contentious and non-contentious issues of intellectual property and antitrust law. Peter's particular focus is on international and national patent litigation, and advising on antitrust law questions at the interface with IP rights. Peter's clients are mainly from the life sciences and TMT sectors. They include a major European life sciences company, a US medical device manufacturer as well as Asian and US electronics, telecom and IT companies. Peter is a registered representative before the Unified Patent Court (UPC), which became operational on 1 June 2023.

Jochen Kindermann

Jochen has been advising financial institutions in relation to regulatory work for more than ten years, in particular with regard to compliance matters. Furthermore, he has gained extensive experience in asset management. Jochen specialises in cross-border activities of regulated entities, in particular the promotion of financial instruments. As a former compliance officer and alumnus of the official brokers’ training programme he has gained considerable insight into the day-to-day business of banking institutions. Jochen has set up fund structures inside and outside Germany and advised asset managers in relation to their buy-side and sell-side activities. Jochen Kindermann’s legal expertise and guidance has been invaluable to the creation and design of the product CryptoReviewer.

Jason is a partner in our corporate & commercial group. He has wide experience of advising on public and private M&A, joint ventures, reorganisations and general corporate and commercial matters. He has a particular focus on cross-border transactions and matters. He is frequently active on M&A transactions involving Japanese companies and acts as advisor to a number of leading Japanese groups on their activities internationally.

Jason is a senior partner in our Corporate & Commercial group. He has wide experience of advising on private and public M&A, joint ventures, strategic alliances, investment transactions, reorganisations and general corporate and commercial matters. Jason has a particular focus on cross-border transactions and matters and has led the teams on many of the firm’s highest-profile mandates. He has significant experience in a number of sectors, including financial services, asset management, real estate and technology. For a number of years he led the firm’s Corporate practice in Asia. He is a Japanese speaker and acts as advisor to a number of leading Japanese groups on their activities internationally.

Aaron heads our Tokyo office. He specialises in guiding Japanese businesses through international corporate transactions and global businesses on their Japanese operations. A fluent Japanese speaker who has lived in Japan for over 10 years, Aaron advises Japanese businesses on all areas of cross-border M&A, including sales, acquisitions and alliances in a variety of sectors, including TMT and Healthcare & Life Sciences. His experience includes acting on the full range of corporate and commercial documentation, including in connection with share sales, business sales, shareholders’ arrangements and business alliances, transitional services arrangements, supply and distribution agreements and licences of IP.

George is a partner in our Dispute Resolution Group in China and serves as the head of the Simmons & Simmons (Beijing) Intellectual Property Agency. In this capacity, George is a leading authority on intellectual property (“IP”) for Mainland China and leads a veteran team that specialises in securing and enforcing IP rights, as well as advising on commercial IP and regulatory IP matters. He is also at the forefront of the rapidly changing field of online branding for China, and his online branding strategies have been adopted by various governments. George is known for his bespoke, creative legal solutions for his clients’ matters, and often finds solutions to legal problems that others had overlooked. In addition, he is regularly consulted by industry experts and commentators for his views on developing IP issues in China. George joined Simmons & Simmons as a Partner in 2014, when he led the successful launch of the Simmons & Simmons (Beijing) Intellectual Property Agency. The Intellectual Property Agency has since been featured as a leading IP service provider by many prominent legal rankings, including World Trademark Review, Managing IP, Chambers, and Legal 500.

Yongmei specialises in cross-border finance and financial regulatory work. She has more than 25 years’ experience of advising major international and local financial institutions, commercial corporations and equity investors on corporate finance, real estate finance, commodity and trade finance, project finance, acquisition and leverage finance, asset finance and restructuring. Uniquely dual qualified in China and England and having practiced extensively in both jurisdictions, Yongmei is extremely knowledgeable and experienced in security on PRC assets and China foreign exchange regulatory issues. Her team is reputed in advising clients on China related cross-border transactions by combining its experience on international business standards with PRC local laws and regulations and practice. Yongmei has also built up a leading PRC financial regulatory practice which focuses on providing international investors with cross border China financial markets regulatory advice. She also has been developing China related ESG advisory and transactional work. Recently she has been assisting Chinese fintech companies in their international expansions by providing regulatory advice, corporate structuring and transactional legal assistance.

Yuying Wang specializes in private investment fund formation and regulatory affairs. She has successfully advised numerous leading global asset managers on their entry into the Chinese market through QFI, QDLP, QFLP/QDIE, and PFM regimes. Her experience also includes assisting prominent global fund managers in launching securities investment funds and private equity funds in China, as well as providing compliance advice during fund operations. For domestic managers venturing into the global market, Yuying has enabled PRC asset managers to launch investment funds offshore, carry out group restructuring, and manage fund interest secondary transactions.

Jingyuan is our head of Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) practice group in Greater China. She is a PRC-qualified lawyer and a practising solicitor in England and Wales. Jingyuan is specialised in data and technology laws. She has supported a large number of TMT companies, life science companies, strategic and financial investors, asset managers, financial institutions and fintech companies on an impressive selection of mandates, including without limitation data compliance, PE/VC and M&A transactions, regulatory and intellectual property. She has been based in Shanghai, Beijing, London, Hong Kong and Shenzhen for her practice. Jingyuan is regularly invited to speak at industrial events. She is also a regular contributor to the Simmons & Simmons website and WeChat account, and for the China chapters of Lexology Getting The Deal Through – Fintech (2017–2024) and Lexology Panoramic Next (formerly known as Market Intelligence) – Privacy and Cybersecurity (2021-2024). Ranked and quoted by Legal 500 Asia and Chambers Asia from 2017 throughout 2023 clients have quoted Jingyuan as being “very strong executive ability, sense of responsibility and great experience”, “super smart, very knowledgeable and proactive”. Jingyuan has lead team to be awarded as the “International TMT Firm of the year” (China Law and Practice Awards 2021). Jingyuan is shortlisted as the Data Privacy Lawyer of the year (Asia Legal Awards 2023); and as leading the M&A Deal of the Year (ALB Hong Kong Law Awards 2024).

Caroline Turner-Inskip

Caroline is the head of our Bristol office. Caroline has a wealth of experience advising on the acquisition, disposal and portfolio management of commercial real estate assets. She specialises in advising banks and funders dealing with real estate financing. She also has experience dealing with renewables assets and acts for both investors and funders in this is area.

Stephanie Featherstone

Steph is a partner in the UK Corporate/M&A group. She provides corporate advice to companies and financial institutions on a wide range of issues including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, corporate fundraisings and corporate reorganisations. She has significant experience in complex cross border M&A and joint ventures. Steph is a member of the firm's Accelerate Digital group, focused on guiding clients through digital transformation.

Jonathan Spencer

Jonathan is a partner in the firm's Insurance and Construction group. His practice primarily focuses on resolving claims against construction professionals/contractors, and also regularly advises London market insurers on complex professional indemnity coverage disputes. Jonathan's experience spans a wide variety of construction disputes involving: iconic buildings; sports grounds; schools/universities; hospitals; large residential schemes; listed buildings; commercial/retail; and renewable energy facilities -in the UK and internationally. His caseload regularly involves mediations, arbitrations, adjudications and High Court litigation. Jonathan also advises construction professionals and their insurers on environmental/ESG risks, as the move to greener construction gathers pace (including modular construction). Jonathan has undertaken a year-long client secondment at a major international insurer, and he has also created the Policy Wording Toolkit -- an online product that outlines key policy coverage issues across several jurisdictions to help insurers manage risk.

Alexander Thavenot

Alexander specialises in complex cross-border disputes and investigations, with a focus on wholesale banking and wealth management. Alexander is a partner and solicitor advocate in the dispute resolution group in London and Bristol. He regularly acts for international financial institutions and asset managers on disputes involving structured products, derivatives, asset financing, real estate, and commodities. His recent experience includes the defence of a $800m dishonest assistance claim, the defence of a £30m swaps misselling claim, a claim for breach of put options, debt recovery and enforcement proceedings, shareholder disputes, and internal investigations into trader misconduct.

Lawrence is a partner in our UK Digital Business group. He advises clients on complex (and frequently regulated) technology transactions and on cross-border data protection matters. He has particular experience in advising on large-scale cloud services and other technology transactions. Regularly acting both for customers and suppliers, he helps the parties get to the point quickly in negotiations. As co-lead of our Data Protection Cross-Border Group, Lawrence is responsible for driving forward collaboration in this area. He has a particular focus on issue-spotting and developing user-friendly processes and products to help clients to tackle complex data-related matters.

Lawrence is a partner in our UK Digital Business group. He advises clients on complex (and frequently regulated) technology transactions and on cross-border data protection matters. Highlighted in the Legal 500 2018 for his “methodical approach”, he has a deep understanding of the laws and regulations that apply to technology and financial services sector clients and is therefore able to provide them with sector-specialised advice. He has particular experience in advising on large-scale cloud services and other technology transactions. Regularly acting both for customers and suppliers, he helps the parties get to the point quickly in negotiations. As co-lead of our Data Protection Cross-Border Group, Lawrence is responsible for driving forward collaboration in this area. He has a particular focus on issue-spotting and developing user-friendly processes and products to help clients to tackle complex data-related matters. Lawrence joined us in 2003 and has spent time on secondment with a global financial institution, RBS and SEI Investments. Lawrence is a member of the firm's Accelerate Digital group, focused on guiding clients through digital transformation. Lawrence Brown’s legal expertise and guidance has been invaluable to the creation and design of the product CtrlTransfer.

James has over 15 years’ experience in city and national firms advising on all pensions-related matters including pension scheme investments, corporate restructurings/M&A and public sector pensions. His clients include sponsoring employers, trustees and providers and public sector bodies.

Dan is an associate in our pensions practice in London, advising employers and pension scheme Trustees on a number of issues. These include, for example, advising on notifiable events for scheme Trustees, employer-related investments, pension sharing orders, defined benefit to defined contribution transfers, and clearance applications to HMRC. Dan recently completed a six-month secondment in the Employment legal team of a global bank.

Richard is a long-standing partner in our International Energy, Natural Resources and Infrastructure team and specialises in PPP/PFI concessions and non-contentious construction law in the UK and internationally, with a particular focus on the energy and infrastructure sectors. He has recently led the Simmons team on a major refinancing of Iona Capital's asset portfolio. He has been acting for the new wave of Energy from Waste transactions and continues to maintain his role for the Ministry of Defence on a number of projects including the most recent training packages for UKMFTS and advice on Cranfield University and the Defence Sixth Form College. He is also the firm’s Pro Bono Partner with responsibility for our pro bono work across all of our international offices and has been instrumental in establishing as a charity the organisation "Lawyers Against Poverty".

Jonathan Spencer

Jonathan is a partner in the firm's Insurance and Construction group. His practice primarily focuses on resolving claims against construction professionals/contractors, and also regularly advises London market insurers on complex professional indemnity coverage disputes. Jonathan's experience spans a wide variety of construction disputes involving: iconic buildings; sports grounds; schools/universities; hospitals; large residential schemes; listed buildings; commercial/retail; and renewable energy facilities -in the UK and internationally. His caseload regularly involves mediations, arbitrations, adjudications and High Court litigation. Jonathan also advises construction professionals and their insurers on environmental/ESG risks, as the move to greener construction gathers pace (including modular construction). Jonathan has undertaken a year-long client secondment at a major international insurer, and he has also created the Policy Wording Toolkit -- an online product that outlines key policy coverage issues across several jurisdictions to help insurers manage risk.

Kim Farrar is a senior associate in the UK Corporate team and has extensive experience advising on domestic and cross-border M&A transactions. Kim regularly advises clients, particularly asset managers and investment funds, on their acquisitions, disposals and investments. She also advises on corporate joint ventures arrangements, from the structuring to the asset acquisition stage, and with a particular focus on the real estate sector.

Marisa Broughton

Marisa is a Chartered Trade Mark Attorney specialising in brand protection and enforcement. She has significant experience in the strategic management of trade mark and design portfolios working with clients in a range of sectors including healthcare, hospitality, technology and fashion. Marisa advises on complex contentious matters including trade mark opposition and cancellation proceedings, infringement, IP contract disputes, bad faith and multi-jurisdictional issues. She appears regularly before the UK Intellectual Property Office and was ranked 10th in the league table of Trade Mark Attorney appearances before the UK IPO for the period 2016 - 2020. She works to develop longstanding, trusted relationships with clients, delivering commercial advice and practical solutions in fast paced sectors.

Sarah specialises in soft IP and is responsible for the day to day running of the Paris Intellectual Property Department. She advises on all the aspects involved in the creation, exploitation and protection of trademarks, design rights, copyrights and domain names and is also well versed on the issues relating to unfair competition, dealing with both contentious and non-contentious matters. Sarah also deals with data protection and advertising matters.

Yves heads the Paris Office energy, natural resources and infrastructure team. He advises international corporate clients, funds, financial institutions and governments on complex power, water, natural resources (mining and oil & gas) and infrastructure projects internationally, with a particular focus on France and North and Sub-Saharan Africa. Yves is one of the co-heads of Simmons & Simmons’ African initiative. He regularly speaks at energy and natural resources conferences in France and internationally.

Thierry Gontard

Thierry specialises in corporate finance with a particular focus on stock exchange and financial markets, in particular public takeovers and corporate governance of public companies. He also has an extensive knowledge of stock market litigation with a specific experience in the area of regulatory and judicial investigations, enforcement proceedings before French courts and market regulators in relation with market abuse, alleged breaches of stock exchange regulations and white collar crimes. He advises investment banks, insurance companies, public companies, asset managers and funds (hedge funds particularly). He regularly speaks at conferences and seminars with the AMF (including AMF Sanctions Committee).

Etinenne Kowalski

Etienne specializes in dispute resolution. He advises and represents clients in commercial and real estate matters (construction, distribution, lease, acquisitions) in France and internationally (Africa). He also has significant experience in regulated industries such as the healthcare sector where he regularly represents clients on a large range of disputes (product liability, commercial, advertisement). He is a member of the firm's crime group and regularly assists or represents companies in criminal cases including product liability, public tenders, corruption or relationship between industry and healthcare professionals. He also advises clients on compliance and anticorruption issues.

Laurence Renard

Laurence is the International Practice Group Head of Employment, and also leads the Employment practice in France (10+ lawyers). She has almost 25+ years’ experience in this area with a focus on advisory and litigation work for sophisticated and demanding clients in an international environment. She regularly guides them through the complexities and frustrations of French employment law in contentious and non-contentious matters. She gives practical and to the point advice, resulting in pragmatic solutions for her clients. She advises employers on collective issues (relations with employee representative bodies, collective agreements, restructuring) and individual issues (dismissals, settlement agreements, bonus plans, etc). Laurence is also an active member of the European Professional Women’s Network (EPWN). She is a recognised lawyer and her legal input on news stories is quoted in the media.

Alexandre Regniault

Alexandre is head of the firm’s Healthcare & Life Sciences sector group. He specialises in strategic legal and regulatory advice, principally on behalf of pharmaceutical, medical devices and biotech companies and significant players in other highly regulated industries. His experience as a litigator mainly covers product liability, breach of contract, break off of negotiations, comparative advertising and claim recovery. Alexandre also has significant expertise in transactional and licensing negotiations, compliance audits and advice on regulatory matters, advising notably sponsors of clinical trials, and major companies in the sector on pricing, reimbursement, advertising and commercial practices. Alexandre is experienced in crisis management and frequently liaises with the French regulatory authorities on behalf of industry players. Alexandre was elected to the board of France Biotech in 2011, becoming Vice-President of the association in 2013. He represents France Biotech at the European confederation of pharmaceutical entrepreneurs (EUCOPE).

Christian Taylor

Christian is a corporate partner in our Paris office. His core practice consists of advising on private mergers and acquisitions and joint ventures, with an emphasis on the life sciences and TMT sectors. Almost all of Christian’s work is cross-border, often involving investments or divestments in France or francophone Africa. He has been permanently based in Paris since 1998, and is fluent in French. In addition to his work in France, Christian has advised on matters in over 20 countries across the African continent, from Algeria to Zambia.

Frédérique Potin

Frédérique is a “Of Counsel” working within the French IP team. Frédérique advises on a wide range of intellectual property and data protection matters. She has acquired expertise in dealing with the intellectual property and data protection aspects of acquisitions and corporate restructuring operations, as well as on contentious matters. She developed a particular area of expertise in IP licensing work, advising clients on complex development and licensing contracts. Her expertise includes advising on ownership of inventions and intellectual property rights of employees and public agents, and on negotiating and drafting co-ownership agreements and collaborations with French academics. Frédérique Potin is an active member of LES, being part of the Committee working on public/private relationships. She is also a member of the French association of biotechs, France Biotech.

Ombline Ancelin

Ombline Ancelin is the lead Competition partner in the Paris office at Simmons & Simmons. Her practice encompasses the full range of competition law, including merger control, anti-competitive practices, distribution and franchising, and also EU general law and consumer law. She also regularly advises on foreign investment control issues. She represents clients at both national and international levels, in antitrust investigations and litigation in several sectors with a particular in-depth knowledge in the life sciences, TMT, energy, fast-moving consumer goods sectors. She works on both advisory and contentious matters, and litigates before the French Competition Authority, the Paris Court of Appeal and Commercial Courts. Moreover, she regularly advises clients on their commercial policies and the organization of their distribution networks across Europe. She assists clients during competition inspections and conducts internal audits as part of her work on competition compliance. Ombline has been acknowledged among the “40 in their 40s Notable Women Competition Professionals in Europe” in 2019 by the platform for women competition professionals W@Competition. In 2021, she was elected as vice-president of the “Competition Commission” of ICC France.

Jacques-Antoine Robert

Jacques-Antoine is Country Head of France and manages the Paris Dispute Resolution department. He is a member of the firm's crime group. Jacques-Antoine is a general commercial lawyer, acting mainly for major industrial groups - notably high tech, pharmaceutical companies, automotive suppliers, chemical industries - shareholders of such groups, their insurers or investment funds. His practice covers high level national and cross border disputes in contract law, tort law (product liability) and crisis management. He represents his clients in regulatory matters, transactions, arbitration and disputes involving commercial, corporate and/or liability issues.

Sandra Esquiva-Hesse

Claire Le Touzé

Claire has a wide range of expertise, assisting clients on all French employment law matters, contentious and non-contentious, and specialising in the Technology, Media & Telecom (TMT) and Life Sciences (LS) sectors. She regularly advises IT and biotech companies, as well as laboratories. Clients also benefit from her in-depth expertise on a recent French law provision on gender pay gap. Claire provides advice to French and international employers on collective relationships with staff representative institutions by negotiating collective agreements (gender equality, working time, remote work), as well as negotiating settlement agreements, implementing bonus schemes and providing strategical advice on termination of key managers. She also works on all employment aspects of corporate deals and represents companies in disputes with their employees. Claire regularly assists with mediations, conducts internal investigations for her clients (discrimination and harassment) and defends against whistleblowing claims.

Julia assists French and international clients on all aspects of French employment law both in contentious and non-contentious matters. Over the last few years Julia has assisted clients on strategic reorganisations such as Brexit relocations, mass redundancies, post-acquisition integrations, etc. She specialises in the Financial institutions / AM&IF and TMT sectors. Her area of expertise covers collective aspects of employment law (professional elections, relationships with the employee representatives, collective agreements, working time, reorganisations, redundancies, background checks and monitoring) and individual aspects (drafting employment documentation, dismissals, negotiation and settlement agreements, bonus schemes and restrictive covenants).

Chloë has a strong expertise in real estate (including structured real estate), corporate, asset management and financial market, with a particular focus on clients in the asset management and investment funds sectors. She has extensive experience advising on real estate structuring and transactional work including sales and purchases of companies, mergers, demergers, joint venture with a special focus on cross-border transactions. Chloë also advises on the structuring of investment funds and other investment product, structured finance products and securitisations.

Elisa Bocianowski

Elisa heads the Paris office Real Estate practice, incorporated in our Financial Markets Department. She advises national and international institutional investors (real estate funds, asset managers, property companies, etc.) in all their real estate transactions. Throughout her career, Elisa has focused on real estate transactions (acquisition of buildings and real estate companies), construction and real estate development law and rental management with a specific expertise in commercial lease law.

Céline is admitted to both the Paris and the Luxembourg bar. She specialised in finance law, including asset-based finance, syndicated and bilateral lending, asset-backed bonds with a focus on capital call financings and real estate financings as well as portfolio transfers and restructuring. Celine acts for all market participants: lenders, borrowers, senior, junior and mezzanine debt players. Céline also specialised in real estate restructuring and insolvency work, working with lenders and borrowers and with insolvency practitioners.

Louis Delestrée

Louis is a managing associate in the Paris Real Estate team. Louis assists clients on various real estate transactions and regularly advises on the negotiation of commercial leases and real estate acquisitions for national and international institutional investors.

Emilie Danglades-Perez

Emilie is a managing associate in the Dispute Resolution group in Paris and is specialised in Data Protection and Privacy. She has provided advice to a wide range of clients within the course of their GDPR compliance plan. She has also provided practical assistance to handle data subjects access requests, personal data breach, and complaints relating to infringement of privacy regulations. She has assisted in advising clients from various sectors to develop innovative and digital tools in compliance with privacy regulations, Internet users rights and consumer law. She has also helped in implementing digital marketing projects in accordance with GDPR and ePrivacy requirements. She has a significant experience in the Life Sciences sector where she assists pharma and medical device companies in their projects involving digital therapeutics and Big Data. She also provides assistance for the development of clinical trials in France and in Europe in accordance with privacy regulations. She is also specialised in commercial and product liability litigation, and represents French and foreign companies before civil and commercial courts.

Louis-Marie Pillebout

Louis-Marie is a partner in our Litigation group in Paris. He is a specialist of financial disputes and corporate litigation. He works primarily for financial institutions, listed companies and their executives. He specialises in corporate, financial and equity litigation and primarily assists the management teams of listed companies and financial institutions, as well as shareholders and investment funds in the context of their litigation (judicial, arbitral, or criminal). He advises both French and international players, especially in complex cross-border litigations relating to M&A, shareholders' agreements, and bank fraud.

Quentin Charluteau

Quentin specialises in dispute resolution and insurance law. His experience in these fields covers product liability, breach of contract, and insurance law both in dispute (Professional Indemnity, Financial lines, D&O) and regulatory matters (compliance, regulator investigations, review of policies).

Davide Sportelli

Davide has extensive expertise in advising Italian and international companies and financial institutions on a wide range of employment matters. Davide heads our Employment group in Milan. He advises on all aspects of employment law, both in and out of court. He works closely with clients to handle individual and collective dismissals, termination of employment relationships with executives and related negotiations, and employment aspects of corporate transactions. Being an expert in relations with the trade unions, Davide also advises on mandatory trade union consultation procedures for collective dismissals, also on a national level. Davide is dedicated to keeping his clients abreast of employment news and regularly holds training events and workshops on employment developments in Italy.

Andrea Accornero

Andrea specialises in private equity and M&A and has extensive experience of corporate and private equity transactions for both Italian and international players. Andrea is the Italy Country Head and specialises in transactions for both Italian and international funds with a focus on private equity and M&A. He has advised some of the most respected and recognised players on a continuous basis on their acquisitions, disposals, restructurings and refinancings.

Maria Giusy Naccarato

Maria Giusy has wide-ranging expertise in the asset management and financial institutions sectors. She regularly advises banks, investment funds, asset management companies, investment firms and insurance companies. Maria Giusy is a Counsel in our Financial Markets group within our financial services regulatory team in Milan. She focuses on investment services, financial instruments, asset management, insurance products, investment funds and market regulation. Maria Giusy regularly provides advice in relation to cross-border regulatory projects, including passporting procedures and the obtaining of the required local licences from relevant regulators. A key part of this process being ensuring that applicable EU legislation (including MiFID) is adequately reflected in the setup of domestic and international financial institutions operating in Italy. In this context, Maria Giusy also provides advice in relation to contractual documentation, market regulation and applicable on-going reporting duties. She is frequent speaker at industry conferences and author of several articles on investment services for industry publications.

Simone Lucatello

Simone is a partner in the Financial Markets Group and co-heads the structured finance group in the Milan office. He is qualified to practice law in Italy and New York. His practice focuses on structured finance and securitisation transactions, having gained a particular experience on complex public and private securitisations on various performing and non-performing assets, structured project financing and refinancing arrangements also through hybrid transactions and private debt transactions.

Dario is a partner of our Milan office and co-heading our Italian Real Estate practice as well as the Asian Desk in Italy. Dario has extensive experience on M&A, corporate real estate, private equity and restructuring transactions for both Italian and international clients. He has advised some of the most recognised players on their acquisitions, disposals of both assets and shares, restructuring and refinancing transactions. He is registered as foreign attorney of the Law Society of Hong Kong and he is co-founder and member of the Hungarian-Italian cultural association in Venice and a former member of the management committee of the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Singapore.

Stefania Bergia

Stefania is a partner in our Milan office IP practice. She assists clients, including on a pan-European level, on a extensive range of judicial and extra-judicial matters of IP law, including patents, trademarks and domain names, trade secrets, appellations of origin and geographical indications, industrial design, copyright and related rights, unfair competition, and arbitration. Stefania has a longstanding relationship with the University of Parma, where over the years she has taught a course entitled "Legislation and Patents - Chemical and Biotech Patents and GMO Legislation". She teaches for postgraduate courses, including those held by the Italian School for the Judiciary (Scuola Superiore della Magistratura), and is a lecturer for the annual "Industrial Property - Patents" course organised by the Polytechnic University of Milan as well as for Just Legal Services' post-graduate courses on IP matters. She was also recently involved in an online course organised by Harvard University. Stefania has presented papers at conferences and authored publications in the IP field.

Paola heads the Debt Capital Markets group in the Milan office. She has more than 20 years' experience in advising Italian and international clients, corporate, financial institutions and banks, sovereign and supranational entities, on securities transactions and regulatory matters related to debt issuances with a particular focus on debuts, and first-of-its-kind transactions. This has led her to advise numerous Italian issuers on their debuts on the Eurobond market as well as on the Italian retail market, on several pilot deals such as recently the first green bond issued by FS, the first Project Bond issued by an Italian Company as well as the first and only Neutral non-dilutive Equity Linked issued in Italy. Paola regularly consults with key players in the Italian market, including the Italian Stock Exchange, the Italian Securities and Exchange Commission (CONSOB), the Bank of Italy, the Italian Government and a range of influential industry associations. She had an important role in the process that brought the approval of crucial capital markets reforms, such as those allowing unlisted companies to issue bonds directly through a favourable corporate and tax regime. Paola has been the only legal practitioner promoting the reform of liability management transactions in Italy and was involved in the preparation of the CONSOB Issuers Regulation regarding these transactions. as well as, more recently, the green and sustainable bonds reform which is still in progress. Paola is an expert in green and sustainable finance, environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues.

Romeo Battigaglia

Romeo focuses on financial markets, where he has extensive knowledge of investment services, financial instruments, structured products and derivatives, asset management, investment funds and market regulation. Romeo is the leading partner of our Italian financial services regulatory team in Milan. He regularly provides advice in relation to cross-border regulatory projects, including passporting procedures and the obtaining of the required local licences from relevant regulators (including cross border licenses to enable UK based firms to continue offering their services in Italy after BREXIT). A key part of this process is ensuring that applicable EU legislation (including MiFID and AIFMD) is adequately reflected in the operations of domestic and international financial institutions and asset managers operating in Italy. In the context of his area of expertise, Romeo also works for listed companies in relation to stock exchange regulatory issues and related corporate matters. He is a regular speaker at seminars and is the author of several articles on topics related to financial services, structured products, asset management, investment funds and market regulation. Romeo is mentioned in all major legal directories as a financial services, funds and regulatory expert. He has also been Strategy Director of the Italian association Select Milano for 4 years, which was launched on the verge of BREXIT to identify and pursue opportunities for attracting businesses in Milan from London.

Edoardo Tedeschi

Edoardo is a partner in our Corporate & Commercial group, leading the Digital Business practice and the TMT sector in Italy. He specializes in national and cross-border M&A, corporate transactions and large-scale project contracts primarily related to Tech and data monetization (from Telco to Automotive, from HLS to Financial Institutions and data centre). Edoardo advises international clients on acquisitions, development capital and day-to-day business operations within the TMT and Digital Business sectors. He has mentored a number of incubators and start-up. He oversees GDPR and AI and data-related issues, focusing on compliance, cross border transfers as well as blockchain and crypto matters. Edoardo co-leads the Automotive Tech group globally and the Italian Cybersecurity and Insurtech Task Force, advising on mobility, smart cities, and data platforms. Recently he has been focused specifically on the evolution of the digital therapeutics in HLS as well as the use of alternative data to boost clinical trials and drug discovery (from insilico to gravity zero generated data). He has mentored our GreenTech Fund and advises on ESG rating platforms for banks and insurance companies.

Andrea advises private equity and other alternative asset fund managers, institutional investors, banks, banking foundations, financial intermediaries, investment firms, and financial institutions on all matters regarding the alternative funds industry. He has solid experience in assisting clients on the Italian and international investment management market and focuses on private equity, venture capital, real estate, funds of funds, co-investment funds, infrastructure funds, SICAFs and structured products. Andrea has assisted public and private parties in numerous transactions involving investment funds and provides support in liaising with the Italian authorities.

Andrea advises private equity and other alternative asset fund managers, institutional investors, banks, banking foundations, financial intermediaries, investment firms, and financial institutions on all matters regarding the alternative funds industry. He has solid experience in assisting clients on the Italian and international investment management market and focuses on private equity, venture capital, real estate, funds of funds, co-investment funds, infrastructure funds, SICAFs and structured products. Andrea has assisted public and private parties in numerous transactions involving investment funds and provides support in liaising with the Italian authorities. Andrea joined us in 2020.

Marco is a partner in the Financial Markets group and leads the Tax team in the Milan office. He is a highly experienced tax advisor and qualified chartered accountant who specialises in the taxation of domestic and cross-border M&A and structured finance transactions for corporates and groups with large experience in private equity and private debt. He assists a wide range of clients including international and domestic investment funds, banks and multinational companies in some of the most important and complex deals in the market.

Riccardo Pennisi

Riccardo has solid experience in the various facets of competition law and has assisted Italian and international clients in proceedings before the Italian Competition Authority concerning violation of Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. He has supervised the various phases of proceedings before the Lazio Regional Administrative Court and the Council of State, as well as civil litigation concerning antitrust damages. He has been part of defence council in proceedings concerning violation of Article 101 and initiated by the European Commission, and in the subsequent stages before the EU courts. He has also assisted in assessing numerous mergers and managing multi-jurisdictional notifications. Riccardo’s work has also included assisting in proceedings involving state aid and abuse of economic dependence and unfair business practices, as well as in internal audits and preparation of antitrust compliance courses. Riccardo is also experienced in assessing and tailoring distribution agreements. Riccardo teaches competition law for various master’s courses and is one of the founders of the association Concorrenze.

Mirella Di Carlo

Mirella has wide-ranging expertise in relation to regulated markets. Mirella is a senior associate in our financial services regulatory team within the Financial Markets group in Milan. She focuses on financial markets (including the insurance market and insurance products), where she has a strong expertise of investment services, financial instruments, structured products and derivatives (both credit and equity derivatives), asset management, investment funds and market regulation. Mirella regularly provides advice in relation to cross-border regulatory projects, including passporting procedures and the obtaining of the required local licences from relevant regulators. A key part of this process is ensuring that applicable EU legislation (including MiFID, MiFID II, Insurance Distribution Directive and EMIR) is adequately reflected in the operations of domestic and international financial institutions operating in Italy. She regularly assists ETFs in listing on, and delisting from, the ETFPlus market managed and regulated by Borsa Italiana and provides advice in relation to listing on-going requirements. She also provides advice in relation to Brexit implications in financial services and payment services directive and payment means.

Marco is a partner in our Corporate & Commercial group in Milan and specialises in M&A, private equity and corporate reorganisations. He has wide-ranging experience in the corporate and commercial sector and in a variety of sectors and industries. His expertise includes private and public M&A (both outbound, inbound, cross-border and domestic), private equity, joint ventures and strategic alliances, general corporate law and commercial contracts.

Mauro specialises in administrative law and has gained thorough experience in a number of sectors including real estate, public procurements, environment, healthcare and life sciences. Mauro heads both our Dispute Resolution practice and the Administrative Law team in Milan. His expertise in administrative and public law includes public tender procedures, building regulations and town planning, public contracts and concessions, energy, healthcare services, public infrastructure, expropriation procedures, environmental matters, procedures involving public and private works procurements, foreign direct investment (FDI) process, administrative and accounting liability of public employees. He also assists in judicial and extrajudicial matters concerning town planning, public contracts, environmental law, and energy law. He is qualified to practice before the Supreme Court and assists clients before the Regional Administrative Courts, the Council of State, the Court for the Supervision of Public Accounts and arbitration boards. Mauro is a member of arbitration boards and boards of directors of companies operating in the public concessions sector. He is also a member of the Administrative Justice Committee founded by the Milan Bar Association and a member of the Lombardy Administrative Lawyers Association.

Emanuela has nearly 20 years of experience in employment law matters, industrial relations, and employment law litigation. She is an of counsel in our Employment group in Milan. She represents some of the largest international luxury and fashion companies before civil and employment courts and the Italian Supreme Court on a wide range of employment matters. Emanuela also provides day-to-day assistance to clients on non-contentious matters. These include smart-working projects; employee hires, transfers and terminations; protection against parallel importing; background checks; GDPR-related issues; social media policies; whistleblowing and related policies; and investigations and disciplinary procedures. She joined us in 2001 and has completed various secondments to our main clients within their HR and legal division. She regularly leads legal seminars on employment law matters and cooperates in reviewing caselaw developments. She is a member of the European Employment Lawyers Association (EELA).

Stefano is a partner in our Employment group in Milan and specialises in the management of human resources and in the employment law. Stefano assists Italian and international clients in the management of issues such as individual and collective dismissals, international secondments, employment contracts (relating to subordinate and independent employment relationships), outsourcing processes, the employment aspects of corporate transactions and the restructuring and reorganisation of companies, dealing with labour and trade union aspects. Stefano also assists clients with disruptive and innovative business models: over time he has acquired significant experience in dealing with gig-economy and platform employment issues and an in-depth comprehension of the future of work dynamics. Stefano has specific skills in agency-related issues, including agency contracts with a particular focus on the independent financial advisors’ sector, and distribution agreements, as well as in the management of issues concerning relationships with top managers.

Tommaso is a partner in the Financial Markets Group and co-heads the structured finance group in the Milan office. He is experienced in advising in banking and finance matters, focusing in particular on CRM instruments, synthetic securitisations, traditional securitisations aiming at recognition of SRT and NPL traditional securitisations. He has acted for a wide range of arrangers, originators and investors in these products, including public sector institutions.

Christian Turotti

Christian is a supervising associate in the Real Estate team in Milan. He advises clients with all matters and transactions related to real estate law, including the acquisition and disposal of real estate assets and portfolios, lease agreements, real estate financing, and the development and redevelopment of projects. His expertise extends to fund formation and liquidation, handling distressed assets, and engaging in other corporate real estate activities, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and joint ventures. Christian has represented a diverse clientele, including asset management companies and investment funds, developers, corporations, financial institutions, both domestically and internationally. He works on transactions involving office spaces, commercial and residential properties, hotels, industrial sites, and logistics assets. Christian's experience also includes significant contributions to ESG transactional investments and regulatory compliance issues. His ESG-related work in the real estate sector encompasses the acquisition and sale of ESG-certified real estate assets, refurbishments to enhance building efficiency, guidance on obtaining ESG certifications, green financing, the installation of renewable energy systems, lease agreements for nearly zero-energy buildings (NZEB) or zero-emission buildings (ZEB), land reclamation, brownfield redevelopment, and the establishment of sustainable real estate investment funds.

Emanuela Molinaro

Emanuela is a partner in our Real Estate group in Italy, which is part of our Corporate & Commercial Department. Emanuela Molinaro has a significant and consolidated experience, gained in around 20 years of advising on real estate and corporate transactions, with particular reference to real estate acquisitions and development, single assets or complex portfolios, as well as the structuring of investment funds and development joint ventures. She assists institutional and non-institutional investors, both Italian and international, in real estate investments and developments in Italy, in sale and lease back transactions on commercial properties, regarding specific real estate contracts in relation to diversified asset classes.

Luigi Pontrelli

Luigi specialises in administrative law and has gained thorough experience in a number of sectors including public procurements, real estate, healthcare and life sciences. Luigi is a Counsel in our Dispute Resolution group within the Administrative Law team in Milan. His expertise in administrative and public law includes public procurement (especially concerning works and services concessions), renewables, environmental matters, town planning, and healthcare services. He has extensive experience in handling contentious matters in the above areas both before the regional administrative courts and the Council of State.

Martina Baraldo

Martina specialises in administrative law and has gained wide-ranging experience in a number of sectors including real estate, town planning and renewables. Martina is a Supervising associate in our Dispute Resolution group within the Administrative Law team in Milan. Her expertise in administrative and public law includes building regulations, town planning, waste management, energy, environmental law as well as public procurement and healthcare services. Martina is also regularly involved in disputes before the Regional Administrative Courts and the Italian courts. Her experience covers all the different stages within the litigation process, including the preparation of the claims and the litigation strategy. Martina also regularly advises both domestic and foreign clients in relation to foreign direct investment (FDI) control issues.

Ferdinando Nicotra

Ferdinando has extensive experience in matters of EU and Italian antitrust and competition law, also thanks to his experience at the Directorate-General for Competition of the European Commission in Brussels. He especially focusses on M&A transactions, litigation, compensation for antitrust damage, cartels, and vertical agreements and represents Italian and international groups before the Italian Competition Authority, the European Commission, and the national authorities of EU member states. Ferdinando also represents clients before the national administrative courts (Lazio Regional Administrative Court and the Council of State) and before the specialised divisions of the ordinary courts concerning a variety of sectors and markets. He assists Italian and international clients on internal antitrust audits and in drafting and implementing antitrust compliance programmes, antitrust codes and internal guidelines, and in the training of clients’ employees regarding antitrust matters. He also provides extrajudicial assistance and assistance on matters of IT, new technologies, and digital transformation to tech companies (including innovative startups) that operate in IT, AI, Big Data, and New Digital Services.

Laura Fiordelisi

Laura is a partner in our Corporate & Commercial group in Milan and she has gained significant experience in corporate law, focusing mainly on M&A, private equity and venture capital transactions. In almost two decades of experience, she has assisted a number of private equity funds helping them navigate every stage of the investment life cycle, from acquisition through exit. She has been involved in several complex transactions, including cross border mergers and acquisitions, carve-outs, consortium arrangements, minority investments, and disposal across a diverse range of industries, including consumer retail, food & beverage, manufacture, healthcare & life science. Laura also advises private equity sponsors and strategic buyers and sellers, Italian companies and international groups as well as founder-owned businesses and their acquirers.

Vincenzo Salvatore

Vincenzo is a leading authority on Healthcare and Life sciences regulatory matters. He both advises clients on a broad spectrum of aspects related to the pharma and medical device product lifecycle and routinely represents them before national competent authorities and the European Court of Justice. Vincenzo is a partner in our Healthcare and Life Sciences Sector in Milan. He has a wide-ranging expertise in regulatory matters with a focus on clinical trials, orphan designation and marketing authorisation procedures, pharmacovigilance, data protection, market access, price and reimbursement, implementation of new technologies, AI and digital initiatives, inspections and enforcement.

Irene Pellecchia

Irene is a Counsel in the Financial Markets group and part of the Tax team in the Milan office. She is a lawyer admitted to the Italian Supreme Court and to the Italian Constitutional Court. She has over 20 years' experience in handling complex pre-litigation and litigation proceedings, with a particular focus on disputes relating to international taxation, abuse of law, corporate and financial taxation. She also daily deals with domestic and cross-border rulings and advance agreement requests (APA, MAP, etc.), as well as with technical advice in criminal matters. Irene advises a wide range of clients, including investment funds, banks, multinational companies and individuals. She has authored several legal publications on tax litigation and gives speeches at conferences, masters, and training courses.

Irene Pellecchia

Irene is a Counsel in the Financial Markets group and part of the Tax team in the Milan office. She is a lawyer admitted to the Italian Supreme Court and to the Italian Constitutional Court. She has over 20 years' experience in handling complex pre-litigation and litigation proceedings, with a particular focus on disputes relating to international taxation, abuse of law, corporate and financial taxation. She also daily deals with domestic and cross-border rulings and advance agreement requests (APA, MAP, etc.), as well as with technical advice in criminal matters. Irene advises a wide range of clients, including investment funds, banks, multinational companies and individuals. She has authored several legal publications on tax litigation and gives speeches at conferences, masters, and training courses. Irene joined us in 2024.

Benedict specialises in asset management and investment funds. He acts on the full range of onshore and offshore collective investment schemes, on all aspects of fund formation and their asset managers on all legal and regulatory aspects of their fund management business. Benedict is a partner in our Financial Markets group in Singapore. He has extensive experience in the asset management sector having advised managers of all sizes on a wide spectrum of matters. He specialises in advising various onshore and offshore open-ended and closed-end collective investment schemes, including hedge funds, venture capital funds, private equity funds and hybrid funds and their managers on all aspects of fund formation. He also has extensive experience advising asset managers on all legal and regulatory aspects of their fund management business, including fund formation and structuring, seed investments, offering rules for offers of interests of private and retail collective investment schemes, share disclosure requirements, licensing and registration for the asset managers and ongoing legal and regulatory obligations, and other issues pertinent to their business such as employment and data protection. He is one of the few recognised as a Next Generation Lawyer by Legal 500 Singapore 2019 and has been described by clients as being “technically proficient and provides excellent, pragmatic advice of a consistently high quality”. He is also recognised as an expert and rising star for investment funds in Singapore by Expert Guides.

Jek-Aun heads the firm’s investment funds practice in Asia and previously headed the firm’s Singapore office until March 2023. He has been specialising in investment funds and regulatory work since 1998 and is considered a pioneer, thought-leader and veteran by many in the Singapore fund management industry. Jek-Aun is currently a Member of the Executive Committee of the MAS-Singapore Funds Industry Group (SFIG ExCo). The SFIG is a MAS-industry group formed to further strengthen the value proposition of Singapore as a leading global full-service asset management and fund domiciliation hub. The SFIG ExCo comprises senior industry leaders and industry associations representing fund managers and fund service providers. Jek-Aun has a wealth of experience in private and retail funds as well as listed funds/capital markets work, including private equity/venture capital, real estate, infrastructure, digital assets, private credit and hedge funds as well as mutual funds and ETFs. His transactional and advisory experience includes acting for domestic and international clients on the structuring, establishment, registration and marketing of onshore and offshore funds or managed accounts investing in a spectrum of asset classes, and advising on licensing, regulatory and securities laws issues. He also advises corporate and institutional clients, university endowments, tertiary institutions and sovereign wealth funds in connection with their investments in funds, and assists fund managers with the establishment of their operations in Singapore. Jek-Aun has also launched a number of tokenised funds and has acted for two of the global asset managers who are tokenising the VCC as part of Project Guardian, the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s collaborative initiative with policymakers and the financial industry that seeks to test the feasibility of applications in asset tokenisation and DeFi while managing risks to financial stability and integrity. Jek-Aun joined us as a partner in 2016 and was instrumental in the launch of our Singapore law capability (Joint Law Venture) on 1 November 2016. Prior to Simmons & Simmons JWS, Jek-Aun was a practice group leader in the financial services department of a leading domestic Singapore law firm. Jek-Aun is ranked in the top-tier of investment funds legal practitioners by Chambers Asia-Pacific and other legal journals/directories in the Investment Funds category, winning plaudits over more than two decades for his extensive expertise in this space representing leading asset managers.

Jason specialises in structured products and derivatives for the sell side and buy side. He acts across a broad range of asset classes, including non-conventional assets. Jason is a partner in our Financial Markets group in Singapore. He specialises in transactions for large international investment banks and regional asset managers – with a focus on structured products and derivatives. As a band 1 practitioner in Chambers Asia Pacific, Jason has significant international experience in sophisticated markets like London, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore. His detailed knowledge of interbank markets, asset management, wealth management and investment products gives Jason a rounded picture of the market. He thinks carefully about each client’s specific business position and creates strategic legal solutions to suit. As co-head of the firm’s cross-border structured products and derivatives group, Jason helps our international network operate efficiently and collaboratively. He’s also a regular speaker at key industry conferences and events, including ISDA and IMAS. Jason joined us in 2001 and has completed secondments to our offices in Tokyo and Hong Kong, as well as with a major investment bank. He helped launch the Singapore office in 2013 and has been growing it ever since.

Calvin's practice focuses on banking & finance. He has significant industry experience advising both lenders and borrowers in relation to complex financing and restructuring transactions, particularly transactions which are cross-border involving Asian, European and African jurisdictions. He also advises on restructuring & insolvency matters in Singapore and the region, as well as banking and lending regulatory matters.

Clarence is a labour and employment law specialist, whose work covers the full spectrum of employment and immigration issues spanning the life cycle of the employment relationship (and beyond). Clarence routinely advises on the employment aspects of M&A transactions and internal reorganisations, and assists clients on issues ranging from cross-border restructurings and retrenchments to employee misconduct, disciplinary hearings and terminations. A litigator by training, Clarence also regularly acts for clients in matters involving breaches of post-termination restrictions, including seeking (and resisting) the enforcement of restrictive covenants and confidentiality obligations before the Singapore courts, with considerable success. Clarence also has significant experience in dealing with fraud, corruption and data privacy issues. He is often called upon to assist with complex compliance and regulatory breaches, and to conduct internal investigations into bribery, corruption and white-collar crime issues across the region. Clarence is qualified in Singapore and England. Among his various accolades, Clarence is recognised as a “Next Generation Partner” for Labour and Employment by the Legal 500 Asia Pacific, an “Up and Coming” partner for Singapore Employment by Chambers and Partners, one of Singapore’s “30 Most Influential Lawyers Under 40” by the Singapore Business Review and one of International Employment Lawyer’s inaugural “Tomorrow’s Leaders”. He is the author of the employment law and data privacy chapters in Lexis Practical Guidance. Clarence was previously appointed an amicus curiae to the Supreme Court of Singapore, and is a member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners and the Association of Workplace Investigators. He is also an accredited specialist mediator with the Singapore International Mediation Centre.

Sonia is a partner in the Financial Markets Group in Singapore. She has more than 20 years of experience in providing legal and regulatory advice within the financial markets and advising on complex derivatives and structured product transactions. Sonia focuses on regulatory and advisory matters relating to derivatives and structured transactions, including IBOR transition, margin, default management, netting and collateral arrangements and other related issues. In addition, she also advises on a broad range of products and transaction structures across different asset classes (including FX, rates, equity and funds) and repos and stock lending arrangements. She works with a broad range of global and regional financial institutions (including private banks). Sonia is regularly ranked as a leading individual in legal directories. She is often complimented by clients for her responsiveness, concise advice and her ability to relate to the business environment. Sonia is qualified to practise in Singapore and England and Wales. She has worked in major financial centres including London, New York and Hong Kong and having also held senior in-house positions in leading global financial institutions, she brings with her an in-depth knowledge of the global financial markets.

Ying is a leading practitioner in the IT and media sectors, specialising in technology transactions, intellectual property, regulatory matters and funding/M&A of technology companies. She is a partner of our Digital Business Group in Singapore. Having a front row seat to the fast evolving Web3 space since 2017, she works closely with companies leveraging on blockchain across various sectors such as social/digital media, games, music, enterprise software and services and commodities. She has also developed a niche in the metaverse and NFT space, drawing from the combination of her experience in the IT and media sectors and her multi-jurisdictional experience in protecting, commercialising and enforcing a variety of IP rights. Ying often collaborates with other counsel to streamline and provide holistic advice to clients with international businesses, covering a gamut of issues, such as corporate structuring, data (data servers, cybersecurity, data protection), e-commerce regulations, intellectual property and technology transactions. Ying is consistently named a leading individual for TMT law by The Legal 500 Asia Pacific and has been ranked by Chambers & Partners Asia Pacific in TMT, IP Litigation and Startups & Emerging Companies. In 2018, she was also named one of Singapore’s top lawyers by Asia Business Law Journal and one of the world’s top ten cryptocurrency experts by The Cryptocurrency Magazine.

Language: English Yongmei specialises in cross-border finance and financial regulatory work. She has more than 25 years’ experience of advising major international and local financial institutions, commercial corporations and equity investors on corporate finance, real estate finance, commodity and trade finance, project finance, acquisition and leverage finance, asset finance and restructuring. Uniquely dual qualified in China and England and having practiced extensively in both jurisdictions, Yongmei is extremely knowledgeable and experienced in security on PRC assets and China foreign exchange regulatory issues. Her team is reputed in advising clients on China related cross-border transactions by combining its experience on international business standards with PRC local laws and regulations and practice. Yongmei has also built up a leading PRC financial regulatory practice which focuses on providing international investors with cross border China financial markets regulatory advice. She also has been developing China related ESG advisory and transactional work. Recently she has been assisting Chinese fintech companies in their international expansions by providing regulatory advice, corporate structuring and transactional legal assistance.

Dax is a partner in our corporate & commercial group in Singapore and specialises in the representation of venture capital and growth equity funds as well as emerging growth companies. Dax has significant experience in advising investment funds on structuring, formation and global investment transactions. He also works extensively with venture backed technology companies throughout their lifecycles advising them on debt and equity financing, strategic partnerships and regulatory and commercial matters. Dax has also been involved in major cross border mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and investments across a wide range of industries including e-commerce, financial technology, biotechnology and artificial intelligence. Dax's clients include leading venture capital firms, fintech unicorns and emerging growth companies. He is also very active in the venture capital ecosystem in the region and regularly partners with growth stage accelerators and incubators providing mentorship to entrepreneurs and early stage companies. Prior to joining Simmons & Simmons JWS, Dax led the venture capital practice group in a leading technology focused international firm.

Ashleigh is a Senior Associate at Taylor Vinters Via LLC. He works with the Corporate Team.

Angelia specialises in trade and supply chain finance across traditional trade products and products that support open account transactions. She supports clients from the origination to the distribution of risks in such trade and supply chain finance products. Additionally, she advises clients in disputes pertaining to such trade and supply chain finance products. With over 25 years of experience, Angelia has a wealth of experience in different jurisdictions and how jurisdictional aspects impact industry rules (eg, UCP600, URR725, URDG758 and ISP98), laws on assignment of financial assets, laws pertaining to negotiable instruments and enforcement over security. She has also been involved and resolved disputes by deploying practical strategies in day-to-day issues faced by financial institutions. Angelia’s unique advisory capability stems from her in-house experience in Cargill, JPMorgan and Standard Chartered Bank where she was global head of legal for trade, ensuring she can provide comprehensive end-to-end advice covering the myriad of issues faced by clients as they manage the interplay of laws, regulations, industry rules, systems and policies in the confines of the organisation’s operational requirements. Angelia is an active member of the ICC Legal and BAFT Committees and is internationally recognised for her trade advisory experience.

Steve is a Partner in the firm's dispute resolution department and specialises in complex construction disputes. Steve handles complex construction and engineering matters. He represents developers, contractors, engineers and architects in public and private projects, particularly in the infrastructure, power and commercial development sectors. Steve's practice has spanned across Europe and Asia for many years, and he is well versed in infrastructure disputes in Asia. Steve specialises in International Arbitration conducted under all major institutional rules and seats. He is also experienced in litigation in common and civil law jurisdictions, and adjudication. Steve is a member of the Society of Construction Law. He is regularly invited to speak at industry wide conferences.

Harald is involved in transactional, advisory and regulatory work for financial institutions, asset managers and other businesses operating in the financial services sector. He is a capital markets, financial services and investment funds specialist advising on the establishment and distribution of open-ended and closed-ended funds, Master-KVG structures, hedge fund regulation and ETFs. He also advises on all other aspects of capital markets, financial services regulation, for example on derivatives and structured financial instruments, cross-border licences, the registration of EU branches, compliance issues, brokerage and securities trading. Harald has extensive experience in advising on the regulatory aspects of international M&A and outsourcing transactions. Harald regularly publishes articles and holds presentations on financial services regulation in particular with a focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues and sustainable finance. He is an author in two commentaries on the German investment law (KAGB).

Benedikt Weiser

Benedikt advises on all aspects of asset management, regulated and unregulated funds, private equity, general M&A and corporate law. He focuses on advising both investors and fund sponsors on the structuring and formation of investment funds, including private equity, real estate, infrastructure, mezzanine and hedge funds. His practice covers related tax and regulatory matters in all relevant fund jurisdictions. Benedikt is particularly experienced in accompanying investments of German insurance companies and other regulated investors. He has in-depth knowledge of structuring and implementing fund-of-fund and multiple-tier structures, fund-platforms for indirect investments and tax-efficient structured products.

Thomas Scharfenberg

Thomas specialises in debt capital markets law and (retail) structured products. He particularly advises banks but also corporates in connection with capital markets transactions. Thomas is a partner in our Frankfurt office and has extensive experience, inter alia, in advising on structured notes, warrants and certificates, as well as on debt issuance programmes, stand-alone bonds, liability management transactions, German law governed registered notes (Namensschuldverschreibungen) and assignable loan agreements (Schuldscheindarlehen). Thomas is also an expert in environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues and sustainable finance.

Christopher Kranz

Christopher is a partner in our Banking & Finance and Restructuring & Special Situations practices. He is the head of the German RSS Practice. He regularly advises lenders, creditors, debtors, directors, investors and shareholders in relation to finance transactions and debt restructurings, often within a cross-border context. His practice covers all areas of finance, restructuring, insolvency and corporate law. Some recent examples include the successful restructurings of Softline AG through the use of a state-of-the-art StaRUG-Proceeding, MagForce AG by way of a distressed M&A transaction combined with a cross-border debt equity swap or the insolvency proceedings over Wirecard AG and Fintyre Group. Christopher has extensive experience in the areas of secured lending, Schuldschein loans, acquisition finance, distressed refinancings and M&A, workouts and all varieties of rescue and insolvency proceedings. In addition, Christopher regularly publishes on insolvency, corporate and finance law with a particular focus on new hybrid proceedings such as the German StaRUG-Scheme, the Dutch Scheme and the UK Scheme of Arrangement/Restructuring Plan.

Sabrina Schwiebert

Sabrina specialises in asset management and regulatory law, in particular with regard to private equity funds, real estate funds and debt funds. She advises a wide range of financial actors like regulated investors, insurance companies and asset managers. Sabrina has an extensive knowledge with investments of German insurance companies and other regulated investors. She has assisted in structuring and implementing fund-of-fund structures, fund platforms for indirect investments and tax efficient structured products.

Daniel Lühmann

Daniel works as a partner in our Frankfurt office and has wide-ranging expertise in the financial services sector with a focus on asset management and investment funds. He advises national and international clients on the regulatory aspects of banking and finance law. Daniel regularly publishes articles and holds presentations on financial services regulation with focus on Sustainable Financing and Environmental Social Governance Investment.

Stephanie Nottrott

Stephanie has profound expertise in handling global patent and trademark portfolios. Her clients include small and medium-sized biotech businesses, universities and companies in the pharmaceutical and nanotechnology industry. Stephanie provides qualified advice in the area of patent and trademark law with particular focus on national and international prosecution proceedings as well as the defence and enforcement of protective rights against third parties. In light of her proven scientific expertise in the field of protein-RNA biology, she particularly focuses on the area of life sciences including biochemistry, molecular biology, genetic engineering and medical devices. Stephanie has long-standing experience in successfully representing clients in opposition and appeal proceedings before the European Patent Office, the German Patent and Trade Mark Office and the European Union Intellectual Property Office. In patent litigation proceedings, she protects clients' interests before the German civil courts in collaboration with our patent litigators. Her work includes freedom-to-operate analysis and validity opinions. Stephanie is a registered representative before the Unified Patent Court (UPC), which became operational on 1 June 2023. In addition she is admitted to practice before the German Patent and Trademark Office, the European Patent Office, the Federal Patent Court, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the European Union Intellectual Property Office.

Fritz is a European and German Patent attorney. He represents his clients in all fields of intellectual property with an emphasis on patent prosecution and opposition, nullity and infringement proceedings. Specifically, in recent years, he has gained extensive experience in multinational infringement proceedings, where he represents his clients before the German Federal Patent Court, the German infringement courts as well as before the opposition divisions and appeal boards of the European Patent Office. Since he is also responsible for establishing and coordinating the patent strategy of large patent portfolios, he has developed a deep insight into all aspects of patent prosecution. This includes also the provision of validity and infringement opinions. His clients include start-up companies, universities as well as large multinational companies. Due to his scientific education in the fields of immunology and neurobiology, he primarily works in the technical fields of biotechnology, chemistry and pharma, with an emphasis on handling antibody-related cases.

Jochen Kindermann

Jochen has been advising financial institutions in relation to regulatory work for more than ten years, in particular with regard to compliance matters. Furthermore, he has gained extensive experience in asset management. Jochen specialises in cross-border activities of regulated entities, in particular the promotion of financial instruments. As a former compliance officer and alumnus of the official brokers’ training programme he has gained considerable insight into the day-to-day business of banking institutions. Jochen has set up fund structures inside and outside Germany and advised asset managers in relation to their buy-side and sell-side activities. Jochen Kindermann’s legal expertise and guidance has been invaluable to the creation and design of the product CryptoReviewer.

Edward has over 15 years’ experience of advising on all aspects of pensions law and regulatory strategy. As well as maintaining a strong trustee practice and advising employers on the full gamut of endgame and run-on strategy, Edward is particularly focussed on assisting corporate sponsors and their other advisers mitigate regulatory risk in both the transactional and business as usual spaces. He has extensive experience of buy-ins and buy-outs, having led the pensions team’s input on three such matters recently. Edward also helps lead the team’s response to GMPe – advising clients on compliance with their legal responsibilities in a proportionate manner. Edward leads the team's response to the Government's proposals to encourage pension schemes to invest in productive finance (having supported the HM Treasury Working Group developing the Long Term Asset Fund), pensions tax changes (including the abolition of the Lifetime Allowance) and GMP equalisation.

Angus is head of FinTech at Simmons & Simmons. He is an IP specialist with a particular focus on advising clients on the IP aspects of commercial and corporate transactions in a range of sectors including Financial Institutions and TMT. Angus also specialises in copyright and breach of confidence/trade secrets disputes arising out of employee moves. His clients range from top tier investment banks and market leading software developers to some of the UK’s most exciting FinTech start-ups. Angus teaches the IP aspects of the Corporate and Commercial transactions module on the Oxford University Graduate Diploma in IP law and practice. He is also the Contributing Editor of the FinTech edition of Lexology’s Getting The Deal Through; a multi-jurisdictional guide that answers the key legal and regulatory questions affecting FinTech companies across 31 countries.

Kevin is a patent attorney specialising in commercially-focused patent prosecution advice, and contentious proceedings at the European Patent Office. Kevin is a European Patent Attorney and Head of the Patent Prosecution group of Simmons & Simmons. He specialises in the electronics, telecommunications, and medical device technical areas, with a particular emphasis on helping clients obtain, defend, and enforce commercially valuable patent portfolios. Kevin advises clients from small start-ups to multinationals on all aspects of the patent process. He has particular expertise in cellular technologies and has considerable experience in protecting and exploiting essential patents for such technologies. Kevin is an expert in contentious matters, with an enviable success rate in oppositions at the European Patent Office. He helps clients manage international patent portfolios, including procedures to ensure the most valuable protection is obtained in each jurisdiction. Kevin advises clients in complex patent litigation matters, working as an integrated part of the IP group with specialist litigators. He has experience of litigation in the UK Courts, and in a number of international jurisdictions. Kevin is a registered representative before the Unified Patent Court (UPC), which became operational on 1 June 2023.

dam advises on complex, high-value disputes, including litigation, arbitration and regulatory investigations. He acts for clients across a range of sectors, notably for clients in banking, private equity, hedge fund, commodities, natural resources and tech sectors. Much of Adam’s work is cross-border, including where jurisdiction is disputed, and has recently obtained anti-suit injunctions for clients. Several of these cases involve parties affected by financial sanctions, including cross-border litigation involving Russia. He frequently manages multiple sets of proceedings (civil, criminal, regulatory) in parallel, and cross-border. Adam has litigated financial markets disputes across a wide range of wholesale banking issues. Recent work in that area includes disputes relating to derivatives, securitization, investment fund suspension, mis-selling, market abuse and commodities trading. He is regularly instructed on disputes between company directors, or involving partnerships/LLPs. Recent work has included breach of duty claims and seeking to enforce restrictive covenants. Adam also has a broad range of experience in handling securities litigation, including shareholder claims and derivative actions. This includes the ongoing defence of multiple parallel claims brought under s.90A of FSMA against a listed defendant in respect of allegedly misleading disclosures. Adam is recognised for his expertise in civil fraud matters, including fraudulent misrepresentation, market misconduct, insider dealing, and asset recovery. He has obtained urgent injunctive relief on behalf of clients facing these issues.

Minesh is a Partner in the firm’s Disputes & Investigations team and is also the firm’s Global AI Lead. Minesh’s practice focuses on contentious commercial and regulatory issues, principally in the telecoms, media and technology (TMT) sector. He has represented numerous TMT clients on litigation, arbitration and investigation matters (including tech regulatory and data privacy investigations). Minesh has acted on complex disputes relating to technology equipment, telecoms equipment, IT services / outsourcing, software development, licensing and maintenance, cloud services, AI and media rights. As a Solicitor-Advocate (Higher Courts Civil), Minesh appears as counsel in litigation and arbitration proceedings. He has experience of arbitration under the LCIA, ICC, HKIAC, SIAC, DIAC, ADCCAC and UNCITRAL rules, as well as expert determination. Minesh is an accredited mediator with the Society of Mediators and regularly advises clients on alternative dispute resolution. Minesh is an industry-recognised leader in AI law. He is Chair of the Society for Computers and Law (SCL) AI Group, he has contributed chapters in Artificial Intelligence: Law and Regulation and is currently writing chapters for another forthcoming book on AI law, and he is regularly invited to speak at events on AI law (he has previously spoken on behalf of the United Nations). Minesh increasingly advises clients across all sectors on legal, regulatory and ethical issues relating to AI (including data privacy issues, contractual AI issues, responsible AI and AI disputes). Minesh’s expertise in AI law has been recognised through various awards, including ‘Rising Star: Private Practice’ at the British Legal Awards 2022. His work on AI explainability – including advising on the world’s first AI Explainability Statement to receive input from a regulator – was shortlisted at the Legal Innovation Awards 2022 and the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Awards Europe 2022. Minesh has a first class degree in Law from the University of Oxford. He has previously worked in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Paris, and has also spent time working in-house in the regulatory investigations team of a ‘big tech’ company.

Simon has considerable experience in all aspects of commercial real estate. This includes mixed use, residential, student accommodation, office and retail led development and mainstream investment work. The nature of his practice means that he regularly leads large multi-disciplinary transactions, often involving complex joint venture structures, forward funding arrangements, significant pre-lets and high value sales and purchases. He is an expert in housing led development, having worked for the leading stakeholders in this Sector throughout his career.

Caroline Hunter-Yeats

Caroline is a specialist financial markets litigator and contentious regulatory lawyer. Her practice includes: FCA/PSR Enforcement investigations structured and investment product disputes disputes relating to high net worth individuals financial markets litigation. Caroline is a member of the firm’s Governance and Culture Advisory Team (GCAT), which advises on all aspects of corporate governance, culture, remuneration, and risk. She is also a member of the firm’s LIBOR steering group, focused on guiding clients through the IBOR transition and remediation process. Caroline is well known for her gravitas with senior individuals, tact in sensitive investigations, forthright analysis and straight-talking when needed. Caroline is a member of the firm's Accelerate Digital group, focused on guiding clients through digital transformation.

Nick is a partner in the firm’s Disputes & Investigations team. He advises on a wide range of corporate crime, corruption and fraud-related matters. He is experienced at dealing with large scale and sensitive investigations involving the handling of issues in multiple jurisdictions, and regularly advises on reporting to and communications with enforcement authorities including the Serious Fraud Office and National Crime Agency. Nick is also experienced at advising companies under public scrutiny, including the giving of evidence to parliamentary select committees.

Martin’s broad-based practice encompasses financial markets, corporate, real estate (including structured real estate) and commercial work, with an emphasis on clients in the asset management and investment funds and financial institutions sectors. His focus includes advising on funds and other investment products, together with structural tax issues for banking, asset management and insurance clients. Martin also has a wide ranging experience in structuring outsourcing arrangements in the financial sector. Martin leads the financial services tax practice. He is a member of the core team dedicated to advising our alternative manager client base, including emerging and more established managers. The team is behind Simmons & Simmons LaunchPlus: US to UK - the firm’s online resource for US-based fund managers launching in the UK. In 2015, Martin spent five months on secondment with British Land covering the Head of Tax role and providing transactional and advisory support across their business.

Gideon is a senior London based Corporate partner and co-head of the firm's international private equity practice. He advises on a wide range of Corporate matters, with a particular focus on M&A, joint ventures, consortium arrangements and auctions - on a domestic and cross-border basis. He has led many of the firm's most high profile instructions. A regular speaker at client events, Gideon also speaks at seminars and external events such as the European SuperReturn Conference and the BVCA Summit. Gideon has significant experience in a number of sectors, including financial services, asset management, infrastructure and real estate. He advises a number of the world’s leading private equity, infrastructure, sovereign wealth and pension funds, as well as financial institutions, on complex high value transactions (including multiple transactions in the £1bn to £15bn range).

Heather Rowlands

Heather, a solicitor and Chartered Tax Adviser, is a partner in our Contentious Tax team. She has extensive experience of conducting domestic and international tax litigation across all areas of taxation and public law. She is noted for her deep expertise in complex offshore litigation, indirect taxes, environmental taxes and judicial review. Having trained and qualified with the firm in 2009, Heather returned to Simmons in December 2014 after gaining experience in the tax litigation practice of a Big 4 accountancy firm. Heather holds a degree in law from the University of Oxford. She is a regular contributor of articles to Tax Journal.

John advises on a broad range of bilateral, syndicated and structured lending in both developed and developing markets with a particular focus on commodities, trade & export finance, private and retail funds and renewable energy. John has acted for a variety of financial institutions, including Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, BNY Mellon, Deutsche Bank and The Royal Bank of Scotland.

Scott specialises in contentious and non-contentious intellectual property generally, with a strong emphasis on patent litigation in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries. He has considerable experience of defending the patents of research based pharmaceutical companies against attack by their generic competitors and coordinating with the legal teams in other jurisdictions. He has also advised on patent disputes in other industry sectors and in proceedings for design right infringement and misuse of confidential information. Scott is regularly instructed to give patent validity and infringement opinions and also advises clients on licensing and other commercial agreements.

Helen is the head of the UK Banking group at Simmons & Simmons. A partner specialising in real estate finance, Helen advises both lenders and borrowers on UK and European real estate investment and development financings across the spectrum of senior, mezzanine and equity structures. Helen’s understanding of clients' perspectives is drawn from her secondments to investment banks and funds, including with the largest global real estate private equity firm and with a leading global investment bank. Her key sector experience includes offices, private rented sector, hotels, logistics and student accommodation.

Piers Summerfield

Piers is a debt capital markets specialist. He has particular expertise in equity-linked bonds, commercial paper and EMTN programmes. Piers is a partner in our Debt Capital Markets team in London. He advises banks, significant corporates and institutional investors on a wide range of international capital markets transactions. Piers thrives on advising on complex transactions, and he led the Simmons team that was awarded IFLR Europe’s Debt and Equity-Linked Deal of the Year Award for their work on Swiss Re’s innovative convertible bond. He is closely involved in regulatory developments and provides regular training to clients on developments such as the new EU Prospectus Regulation.

Richard Hopkinson-Woolley

Hoppo has more than 20 years’ experience advising clients in relation to their involvement in real estate – whether it be investment (direct and indirect), development, funding, leasing etc across all sub-sectors of the market, including joint ventures. Hoppo is a partner in our Real Estate Group in London. His work often includes multi-disciplinary teams, given the financing, tax and structuring requirements of clients. He has advised on some of the largest pre-lets of offices in the City of London. Key clients include Oxford Properties, Tishman Speyer and funds advised by PGIM Real Estate. Hoppo also has over 10 years' experience of putting together complex transactions involving commercial ground leases, including ground-up development using ground lease investment as part of the capital stack.

Jayne is a partner in the Disputes & Investigations team and heads up the TMT disputes group. Jayne has extensive experience of complex, high-value disputes, in international arbitration, litigation and mediation. She is focussed on the fields of technology and telecoms and has been awarded an Executive Certificate in Computer Science for Lawyers, from Harvard Law School. Jayne is an active member of the firm’s International Arbitration Group, and is also a member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, and the Young LCIA and ICC groups.

Craig specialises in financial services law and regulation, with a focus on investments. Clients include asset managers, insurers, pension schemes and major corporates. Craig is a partner in our Financial Services group in London. He specialises in the contractual architecture supporting transactions for the world’s largest investors. He regularly advises firms on the terms of their investments in the international financial markets. These include SFTs (including repos and stock loans), futures, OTC derivatives and open/closed ended fund investments. His experience includes advising on segregated mandates (IMAs/TMAs), product distribution, custody, prime brokerage and UCITS eligible assets. He is a leader in global benchmark reform (including LIBOR), helping clients develop and implement their IBOR transition plans, including through machine learning and AI. Craig is an expert in financial markets regulation, including EMIR, SFTR and MiFID2. He has advised a number of clients on VM and IM documentation. He regularly co-ordinates cross-border netting and collateral projects and developed our innovative Netting + Collateral Reviewer product. As UK Knowledge Partner, he is responsible for co-ordinating our Knowledge function and further developing our knowledge strategy.

atrick is Head of the UK Dispute Resolution Group. A partner and solicitor advocate (All Higher Courts), Patrick is a commercial dispute resolution specialist with a particular focus on contentious competition matters, cross-border disputes, civil fraud cases and arbitration. Patrick specialises in advising clients in regulated industries including energy, life sciences, TMT and financial institutions.

Matthew has over two decades of experience in all facets of legal and commercial work in the real estate sector. He acts for buyers and sellers on investment deals, advising on complex tax matters, corporate structures and joint venture arrangements. Matthew has expertise in structuring and executing Corporate Real Estate deals, including dealing with W&I brokers and insurance products. He acts for landlords and tenants on portfolios and trophy buildings. Matthew advises developers in connection with site assemblies, options, pre-emptions, pre lets, forward fundings and forward purchases. He acts for the major banks, as well as funds, on real estate backed finance matters, including loan portfolios. Matthew also represents developers and investors on real estate transactions incorporating railway and infrastructure.

James specialises in loan and capital markets products. He acts across a broad range of products including transactions involving UK domestic and international secured and unsecured loans and debt securities, securitisations and other asset backed transactions and convertible, exchangeable and other debt capital markets instruments and amendments and restructurings of such transactions. James is a partner in the Firm’s Financial Markets group in London team. He tends now to act primarily for trustees, agents, security agents, cash managers and other service providers but he has many years of experience acting for arrangers, bank, fund and other lenders and/or investors, borrowers, issuers and other market counterparties. He has many years of experience of working with derivative and fund products, different assets classes and transaction structures and the principles of trust law as they apply to financing transactions. This together with his detailed knowledge of loan and capital markets products means that he is able to advise clients on the most complex structures involving multiple types and varieties of debt funding and help them navigate their way through the peculiarities of different products and different markets. It also means he is expertly placed to support clients working out what to do if and when things do not go according to plan, and/or when parties need to amend or restructure deals, and/or when they start to go wrong and the issues which need to be considered when entering into assignments, transfers or participations of interests in loans.

Alexander Brown

Alex is the head of the firm's Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) sector and a specialist in technology transactions as well as data compliance and commercialisation. He is a partner in our Digital Business Group in London. He’s an expert in advising users and suppliers of technology products and services. He is also a leading expert on data protection and privacy and he guided a large number of clients through their GDPR implementation projects. His experience on technology and outsourcing transactions includes handling large scale, complex outsourcings, software development, licensing and maintenance, telecoms equipment and services contracts and contracts for cloud services. Alexander is adept at making the complex simple and finding practical solutions to legal rules and problems. Since joining Simmons & Simmons in 1997, Alexander has been on secondments to clients such as Virgin Media and O2. He became a partner in 2007 and was appointed as TMT Sector Head in 2015. Alexander is a member of the firm's Accelerate Digital group, focused on guiding clients through digital transformation. Alex Brown’s legal expertise and guidance has been invaluable to the creation and design of the product CtrlTransfer.

Sean is a partner in the capital markets group. He advises on securitised and OTC derivatives transactions as well as SPV structured finance transactions. He advises on a range of on and off balance sheet securitised derivatives including notes, warrants and certificates, as well as repackaging transactions and fiduciary note structures. The underlying references for which include equity, fund, and commodity derivatives and indices as well as physical assets as well as bonds and loans. He has established numerous issuance programmes (both consolidated and non-consolidated programmes). He advises on the retail offering of structured products across Europe, including asset backed securities and leads the firm’s international Retail Structured Products Group. He is also the co-chair of the firm’s China Growth Markets Group.

Adam is a project and development finance lawyer based in London and focused on the Energy, Natural Resources and Infrastructure (ENRI) industries. Adam has 25 years’ experience advising on major ENRI projects and transactions. In that time, Adam has advised energy companies, commercial banks, private equity funds and development finance institutions on a broad range of innovative and ground-breaking deals. Recent transactions include advising the Mitsubishi / QEWC joint venture, UHP, on the financing of Facility D in Qatar, currently the biggest IWPP in the Middle East, advising CIB, EBRD and IFC on the financing of the Sonker Bunkering Terminal in Egypt, and advising Orion Resource Partners on the financing of the Mantos Copper project in Chile.

James specialises in complex commercial contracts (including partnering and outsourcing arrangements), digital and supply chain transformation projects and associated regulatory matters. James is a partner in our Digital Business Group in London. He advises clients in a variety of industries (most often financial services, technology and telecoms) either as customers or suppliers of technology enabled solutions. He also advises on related regulatory requirements and compliance (for instance in respect of privacy and information security, telecoms regulation or financial services outsourcing rules). James’ transactional experience includes advising as part of an award winning team on telecoms infrastructure sale and leaseback arrangements, advising on multi-billion pound contracts for the provision of smart metering communications infrastructure and advising on large scale cross border outsourcings. When advising on transformation projects in particular, his advice has a strong focus on creating workable solutions and utilising technology to deliver comprehensive and efficient support to client objectives.

Nick has a broad experience of corporate tax with a particular emphasis on transactional work including sales and purchases of companies, mergers, demergers, reconstructions, business sales and purchases, joint ventures, and VAT. Nick also advises on structured finance products, securitisations, business process outsourcing arrangements and real estate transactions.

Ali Crosthwaite

Ali is co-lead of our Cross Border Real Estate Transactions Group and has extensive experience within the real estate market with a particular focus on prime City of London and West End investment grade property. She acts primarily for institutional investors, private equity sponsors and asset managers leading multi-practice teams in relation to structured acquisitions and disposals, joint venture arrangements and development. She is particularly experienced in relation to inbound investment into the UK and Europe and has led complex transactions across a range of asset classes including logistics, hotels, PBSA, residential PRS, retail and office schemes. Ali also acts for major corporate occupiers in relation to their leasing requirements. In addition, Ali is one of the firm’s two responsible business partners for the environment.

Mark primarily advises financial institutions, funds and corporates on public and private mergers and acquisitions, securities offerings and related work. He has a particular expertise in shareholder activism and has advised on a number of high profile public campaigns. Mark was seconded for two years as secretary to the UK Panel on Takeovers and mergers and has subsequently acted as secretary to the Hearings Committee of the Panel and the Takeover Appeal Board.

Iain is the head of our Energy, Natural Resources and Infrastructure Group in the UK. He acts for Investment Funds and Corporates and is a leading practitioner in relation to mining & metals and power transactions. He advises on M&A, projects, joint ventures and finance matters (including prepays, streams and royalties). Clients note ‘he has excellent communication skills and a high level of legal expertise and provides invaluable support through very complex transactions’ (Chambers 2023) and ‘is a very diligent, experienced and responsive lawyer who gets up to speed very quickly’ (Chambers 2022). Iain spent six months on secondment at an Energy/Resources major. He regularly speaks at international conferences in the Energy and Natural Resources sectors and sits on the Council of the London based society for the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining. Experience includes advising: British Lithium on its joint venture with Imerys to develop the UK’s largest lithium deposit (which will result in the UK’s first integrated producer of battery-grade lithium, with production targets to supply 500,000 electric cars per year); Orion Resource Partners on its joint venture with Fusion Capital, on the acquisition and financing of the SASA lead and zinc mine in Macedonia and its subsequent sale (by way of reverse takeover) to Central Asia Metals; Mantoverde on its $847m financing package, including $520m of senior debt and $275m equity funding and offtake with Mitsubishi Materials, for its copper and gold project in Chile; and Mainstream Renewable Power on its pan-African and Chilean joint ventures with funds including IFC, Rockefeller Brothers and Actis, and the sale of its interests in those JVs.

Richard is a long-standing partner in our International Energy, Natural Resources and Infrastructure team and specialises in PPP/PFI concessions and non-contentious construction law in the UK and internationally, with a particular focus on the energy and infrastructure sectors. He has recently led the Simmons team on a major refinancing of Iona Capital's asset portfolio. He has been acting for the new wave of Energy from Waste transactions and continues to maintain his role for the Ministry of Defence on a number of projects including the most recent training packages for UKMFTS and advice on Cranfield University and the Defence Sixth Form College. He is also the firm’s Pro Bono Partner with responsibility for our pro bono work across all of our international offices and has been instrumental in establishing as a charity the organisation "Lawyers Against Poverty".

Andrea is an advisor to clients on all employment law issues. She is trusted by clients to deal with their most high value and sensitive matters, including litigation and strategic responses to changes to the law. Her advice is pragmatic and commercial and tailored to the needs and culture of different client organisations. Over the last few years, Andrea has been at the forefront of advising clients in financial services on how they deal with their regulated people – i.e. the interplay between employment and financial services regulatory issues. In particular, she has developed expertise on financial services remuneration regulation and the implementation of new regulatory regimes for banks and other financial services firms, including the upcoming extension of the SMCR to all FCA-regulated firms. She has also advised on sensitive employment issues arising out of regulatory investigations. Andrea is a regular speaker at conferences on these issues. Andrea is a member of the firm’s Governance and Culture Advisory Team (GCAT) which advises on all aspects of corporate governance, culture, remuneration and risk. The GCAT Team helps clients navigate the increasingly challenging legal and regulatory requirements in relation to governance and culture.

Darren specialises in UK and European regulation of buy side and sell side clients, including hedge fund managers, private equity houses, investment banks and broker dealers. He is widely acknowledged as a leading regulatory advisor in the hedge fund sector. Darren regularly advises a wide range of financial sector clients on all aspects of the law and regulation applicable to the discretionary management of investments, the trading, clearing and settlement of transactions in securities, derivatives and other financial instruments (both on exchange and over the counter), investment banking activities and other financial services. Darren’s areas of specialism include hedge fund manager regulation, exchange traded derivatives and banking regulation (including capital adequacy requirements).

Michael specialises in all types of transactions involving intellectual property. In addition to negotiating agreements, Michael often advises on contractual interpretation and disputes. This includes consortium agreements, joint ventures, licensing, commercialization agreements and financings, as well as share and asset deals. He has particular expertise in multi-party collaborations and funds involving industry, academia, technology transfer offices and governments. He has considerable experience in a wide range of industry sectors, including life sciences, technology, energy, financial institutions and consumer goods. Michael also specialises in regulatory compliance, advising on matters such as interactions with healthcare professionals, clinical trials, marketing authorization, manufacturing, distribution, promotion and pharmacovigilance, as well as data privacy and regulatory data exclusivity. Michael is head of our firm’s UK life sciences practice.

Ian is the firm’s General Counsel. He was previously a partner in the firm’s dispute resolution practice, where he led the team acting for Sushovan Hussain, the former CFO of Autonomy Corporation in the defence of claims brought against him and the former CEO Dr Mike Lynch by Hewlett Packard This is the largest fraud claim ever brought against individual defendants in the English courts. He also led the team acting for Grant Thornton UK LLP in the successful defence of the claims brought against it by Vincent and Robert Tchenguiz, for which the team won both Legal Business Commercial Litigation Team of the Year and The Lawyer Litigation Team of the Year. In addition to his commercial disputes practice, Ian advises a number of professional services firms on liability, risk and associated regulatory issues.

Jonathan Hammond

Jonathan is our Asia Regional Head based in our Hong Kong office. Jonathan is a partner in our Financial Markets group specialising in structured products and derivatives. He has advised sell and buy side clients on a variety of asset backed structures and synthetic transactions. In 2018 Jonathan completed a secondment to a major investment bank and in 2019 he worked in our Frankfurt office. Jonathan is a qualified solicitor in England and Wales and Hong Kong.

Charles has extensive experience advising on international capital markets transactions and US securities law matters. As a partner based in our London office, he has represented many issuers and investment banks in connection with debt and equity offerings. He has wide-ranging experience advising clients outside the US on compliance with US securities laws in the context of cross-border transactions. He has acted for clients on many Rule 144A offerings, private placements and programme issuance of debt, equity and asset-backed securities.

Jeremy is the managing partner of Simmons & Simmons. He is responsible for developing and driving the firm’s vision and business plan. Working closely with the international leadership team, Jeremy spends much of his time leading initiatives that will help the firm achieve its strategic goals. Since becoming managing partner in 2011 he has grown the firm substantially. He has been the driving force behind office openings in Beijing, Bristol, Singapore, Shenzhen, Munich, Luxembourg, Dublin, Cambridge and San Francisco. Jeremy is the managing partner of Simmons & Simmons. He is responsible for developing and driving the firm’s vision and business plan. Working closely with the international leadership team, Jeremy spends much of his time leading initiatives that will help the firm achieve its strategic goals. Since becoming managing partner in 2011 he has grown the firm substantially. He has been the driving force behind office openings in Beijing, Bristol, Singapore, Shenzhen, Munich, Luxembourg, Dublin, Cambridge and San Francisco. Over his tenure, Jeremy has also introduced progressive people strategies to make Simmons a great place to work and develop a career. Enhanced flexible working, for example, was introduced in his early years. Followed by Adaptive, the firm’s flexible resourcing model, in 2014. Before being appointed managing partner, Jeremy held various leadership roles across the finance, capital markets and financial services groups. He has lived and worked in both London and Hong Kong.

John specialises in real estate and has wide ranging experience of advising on investment and development transactions in relation to both the commercial and large-scale residential markets. John has a wealth of experience in relation to the structured acquisitions and disposals of investment properties, joint ventures, sales and leaseback arrangements, and the more general aspects of landlord and tenant law. John has particular experience in dealing with real estate finance transactions, working closely with our finance team. John also specialises in dealing with real estate transactions within the hotel and leisure, student accommodation and the build-to-rent/private rented sectors. John represents a broad spectrum of fund and financial institution clients which include major investors, banks, property funds and private capital and he acts for a range of developers, landlords and tenants.

Alyson is a finance and restructuring partner with a particular focus on restructuring and distressed debt investment, distressed financings and secondary market debt and claim trading. She acts for many of the most active investors in the European market (both US and UK-based funds, broker-dealers, financial institutions and corporates).

Michael Lorraine

Michael is the Head of the firm’s UK Structured Finance and Derivatives Group and co-head of the firm’s cross-border Asset-Backed Finance and Securitisation team. He has extensive experience advising on a wide range of asset-backed structures including public and private securitisation, covered bonds, warehouse facilities, asset-backed lending and specialty finance, receivables financing and portfolio acquisitions. Michael has a particular focus on innovative asset-backed structures and asset classes and regularly acts for originators, funders (including banks and direct lenders), sponsors, arrangers and lead managers.

Stuart is the Global co-head of our international arbitration practice. Stuart has drafted complex choice of law clauses and multi-tier and multi-party arbitration and jurisdiction agreements for many transactions, including multi-million dollar M&A deals and international oil and gas projects in the Middle East, Nigeria, India and South America. Stuart has conducted arbitrations under both common law and civil law in England, mainland Europe (including Sweden, Switzerland, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic), the Middle East, Africa and Australia. He has acted for and against parties from the UK, mainland Europe, Central Europe, Asia, North and South America, Australia and Africa.

Kevin specialises in contentious and non-contentious intellectual property matters, focusing specifically on patent litigation, especially in the pharmaceuticals industry. Kevin has been part of an international team of lawyers working towards the creation of a new European patent court for several years and is currently the Chairman of the Committee tasked with drafting the Rules and Procedure of the Unified Patent Court (UPC). Kevin is the only UK lawyer who is a member of the Expert Group advising on the implementation of the UPC project. Kevin has organised and participated at the fore every year in Venice, for European patent judges and is advising the European Patent Office on judicial training. He is also a member of the Intellectual Property Solicitors Association and a member of the American Intellectual Property Law Association.

Darren has broad ranging transactional, advisory and tax disputes expertise. He leads both the UK and international tax practices and has a market leading reputation for his tax advisory practice advising major investment banks and asset managers. Darren advises on a wide range of tax issues, with a focus on clients in the Financial Institutions and Asset Management and Investment Funds sectors. He has extensive experience in the corporate and individual tax issues which arise for such clients. He also regularly acts for clients in relation to their disputes with tax authorities, across a variety of taxes.

Colin served as the senior partner of Simmons & Simmons between August 2011 and July 2021. He has now become the Firm’s Client Development Partner but will also maintain his litigation practice. Over the last 36 years Colin has worked in England, Hong Kong and the Middle East from where he has developed a varied commercial litigation practice that encompasses both international and domestic disputes. His particular focus areas have been finance litigation, extradition disputes and large professional indemnity claims. Colin published the 4th edition of Privilege in December 2019. This is one of the leading textbooks on the subject of legal professional privilege.

Hinal is a digital, technology, outsourcing, telecoms and commercial transactions lawyer. His clients are predominantly in the financial services, technology and fintech industries where he guides them through their complex, multi-jurisdictional, transactions. His focus on just a few sectors means he has deep knowledge and insight into the issues organisations face in those sectors. He takes this knowledge and applies it to every interaction, so his clients can be confident that they are receiving the most up to date and informed advice. Hinal is a partner in our Digital Business group. Having practised for over 20 years, in and outside the UK, Hinal’s clients value his experience combined with his calm, can-do and effective manner.

Gary is a senior professional support lawyer in the corporate tax group at Simmons & Simmons. He has written widely on UK and international tax developments, with a particular emphasis on VAT. Gary started his career at another major international law firm where he qualified as a transactional lawyer, advising on a wide range of corporate tax and VAT matters, with a particular emphasis on M&A transactions. Before joining Simmons & Simmons, Gary also worked at LexisNexis Butterworths where he was responsible for rewriting and updating the VAT commentary in De Voil Indirect Tax Service. As a professional support lawyer at Simmons & Simmons, Gary has been responsible for developing the knowledge management strategy for the London corporate tax group, whilst providing support to the international tax teams across Simmons & Simmons. He has also been instrumental in developing means to use tax know how in a marketing context and is responsible for the content of the group’s knowledge products. Since joining Simmons & Simmons, Gary has continued to write widely, particularly on the subject of VAT. He is a regular contributor of articles to leading UK tax publications such as Tax Journal and has also written VAT content for LexisPSL on Abuse of Rights, Composite Supplies and the VAT Treatment of Funds.

Emma is Head of the Disputes and Investigations Group in the UK. She has acted on a range of major investment banking disputes on both the financial markets and retail banking side and is a leading partner in the contentious regulatory practice. In particular, Emma has extensive experience of contentious financial services work, including regulatory investigation and enforcement (including from time spent on secondment to the FCA). Emma has advised multiple clients on conduct risk queries including assessment of conduct rule breaches and fitness and propriety, regulatory reporting requirements and regulatory references. Emma also frequently advises on the implications of the changes to firms introduced by the Senior Manager & Certification Regime.

Andrew Petry is a London-based partner and finance specialist in our Energy, Natural Resources and Infrastructure team. He has recent experience on transactions in the renewables (on and off-shore wind, solar, battery, green hydrogen, biomass and hydropower), PPPs, mining, waste, CCGT, telecoms (including masts, cables and datacentres), transport (including airports), accommodation (including hotels), gas transmission and LNG sectors. Andrew's clients are financiers, project sponsors, borrowers, institutional investors and infrastructure funds and public sector entities. He advises on many kinds of finance transactions including multi-source project financings, IFI/DFI and ECA debt, warehouse facilities, bond financings, trade financings, working capital facilities, borrowing-base financings and sovereign debt. Andrew is fluent in Dutch and German and regularly works in those languages. His practice is very international and in addition to UK deals he is currently advising on transactions in Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Benelux, Nordics, the Balkans and Latin America. He also co-chairs the Simmons & Simmons cross-border group that focusses on Infrastructure Fund Formations and Transactions.

Matthew is an investment funds specialist focusing on all classes of private funds. His practice covers a wide range of transactional and investment work, including fund formation (for both liquid and illiquid assets), indirect investments, advising on investment management issues, joint ventures and managed accounts. He has advised on the establishment of a number of investment vehicles and assisted institutional investors around the world (including sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and family offices) with more than US$30bn of investments.

Juliet Reingold

Juliet is a partner in the Energy, Natural Resources and Infrastructure team and leads our UK Government Group. She is a leading advisor to the UK Government on energy and infrastructure projects and major commercial, strategic and nationally significant transactions at the public/private interface in defence and security/intelligence, nuclear, transport/logistics, utilities, tech and infrastructure. As an industry leading infrastructure specialist, Juliet has taken innovative approaches to designing new commercial structures and legal frameworks for privatisations, PPPs, restructurings, nationalisations, asset sales, special situations, business transformations, commercialisation of assets and procurements (combined value circa £200bn). She is expert at managing multiple stakeholders and the interface of legal, policy, politics and regulation. She is a strategic and tactical advisor at Investment Approval and Board level, and at Ministerial, CEO and Permanent Secretary level and advises on governance and crisis management. Her clients also include foreign governments, sponsors and infrastructure funds.

Isabella Roberts

Isabella is a partner in the corporate group in London. She has experience in a wide range of corporate transactions, including mergers and acquisitions and public and private fundraisings, including in particular advising in connection with listed funds on infrastructure investments particularly in the renewables sector.

Charlotte Stalin

Charlotte is head of the firm's financial institutions sector group and is a leading advisor to global investment firms and banks on the provision of financial services. This includes acting as a strategic advisor across all aspects of their businesses including the establishment and structuring of their businesses, ongoing regulatory reform and compliance with PRA and FCA rules. Charlotte is also in charge of the firm’s market leading cross-border regulatory offering: navigator.

Arthur has wide-ranging expertise in private acquisitions, disposals, mergers and joint ventures in the asset management sector. He leads our UK Company & Commercial Group and serves as a member of our UK Management Committee. Arthur is a partner in our UK Corporate group. He has extensive experience in acting for regulated clients in regulated sectors on domestic and cross border mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, commercial agreements, securities offerings and corporate restructurings. He is particularly experienced in advising private equity, venture capital, infrastructure, institutional funds and global asset managers. Shortlisted for ‘innovative deal of the year’ for his work on competitive auction processes in M&A, he worked closely with our Solutions Business to produce our Interactive Deal Handbook, an innovative post transaction deal tool. Arthur has completed client secondments to: IBM, RSA Group, BofA Securities and Macquarie. Since joining Simmons & Simmons, Arthur has served on many of the firm’s key Partnership Committees, including on the firm’s Board.

Julian is the Senior Partner at Simmons & Simmons. He leads Simmons on its journey to becoming a next generation law firm, delivering outstanding service for our clients and creating a place for our people to thrive. That often means challenging the status quo. Attracting different talent, nurturing diversity and embracing the opportunities offered by AI and technology - having recently studied computer science and coding. With a reputation as a "consummate business lawyer" Julian continues to advise leading institutions on a wide range of people-related employment law issues. He has wide ranging experience in litigation (a Barrister before joining Simmons) and investigations. Julian is a co-founder and trustee of Pennies; a prominent charity that aims to increase micro-donations by using technology for good. Since 2010, it has raised almost £40m. He also serves on the board of directors of Brampton Manor Academy Trust, which runs two state schools in Newham, London. Remaining connected with day-to-day issues gives Julian a real grasp of how to evolve our ways of working to better serve clients, colleagues and communities. As a champion of flexible working (doing so himself) and creating a positive workplace culture, he knows that when people are empowered to do their best work, everyone benefits.

Danny specialises in pensions law and has 25 years of experience in advising on all aspects of pensions and benefits matters. His clients include employers, trustees as well as insolvency practitioners. His practice focuses on advising clients in relation to pension strategy and includes the restructuring of pension schemes such as scheme mergers and changes to benefit structures and de-risking solutions. He also advises on the pensions aspects of corporate transactions liaising with the Pensions Regulator, whenever necessary, as well as assisting the pensions dispute resolution team on pension dispute matters.

Mark leads the UK Real Estate Finance practice. He acts for all market participants: banking lenders, borrowers, senior, junior and mezzanine debt players providing investment, development and structured finance, including commercial mortgage-backed securitisations. Mark also specialises in real estate restructuring and insolvency work, working with lenders and borrowers and with Insolvency Practitioners and Property Receivers. His key sector experience includes residential, hotels and leisure, healthcare, logistics and retail.

Patrick Wallace

Patrick is an energy and infrastructure partner with thirty years of power, oil and gas and infrastructure experience. He regularly advises investment funds, developers, energy companies, governments and lenders. He acts on a wide range of transactions, covering project development and financing, joint ventures, private M&A, privatisations, commercial contracts and trading and regulatory work. He has a broad-ranging practice in the UK, Western Europe and in emerging markets in Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa and he speaks fluent English, French and German. Alongside a busy transactional practice, Patrick teaches electricity, oil and gas law as a Visiting Professor of law at King’s College London. Patrick’s power sector expertise includes thermal, nuclear, renewables and hydro generation, and also covers transmission, supply, distribution, emissions trading, battery storage and corporate PPAs. He was heavily involved in establishing the UK power market at privatisation and in its subsequent reform; and he has worked on many major power projects and acquisitions in the UK, mainland Europe, Africa and Asia since the early 1990s. These include Dabhol in India, Uch in Pakistan, Paiton 2 in Indonesia, Trakya in Turkey, Kribi in Cameroon and many major UK power deals including TXU, Midland Electricity, Teesside and Cottam DC. Patrick's oil and gas experience includes many major pipelines, such as the Nabucco gas pipeline and the Kenyan crude oil pipeline projects; LNG transactions, refineries, supply contracts, and oil and gas acquisitions. Patrick has also been involved in many large projects in the infrastructure, transport, public services, defence and other sectors, both internationally and under the UK’s private finance initiative and public private partnership programmes. He has also worked on a number of mining and water sector transactions.

Deian is a partner in our Real Estate group in London and advises on investment, leasing and development opportunities in a range of real estate asset classes. His clients include public and private investors and developers and he has extensive experience in acting for occupiers as well as landlords in the leasing context. Before he joined us in 2016, Deian spent a number of years at Goldman Sachs, most recently as senior real estate counsel within the legal team with responsibility for assets in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India. Deian has a keen interest in ESG matters and is active in diversity and mentoring efforts inside and outside the firm.

Basil Woodd-Walker

Basil is a member of the firm’s Disputes & Investigations team. He has wide experience of arbitration and litigation for corporate and government clients. His practice focuses on disputes arising out of commercial contracts and complex transactions, primarily in the finance, telecoms, energy and mining sectors. Much of his work involves multiple jurisdictions, notably in Africa and Asia. Basil is listed as a Next Generation Lawyer for International Arbitration by Legal 500 UK. He is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and a qualified Solicitor Advocate. Basil is also a member of Simmons & Simmons' contentious ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) team with experience of disputes relating to, for example, renewable energy incentive programmes, investor-State structuring advice, allegations of corruption, and international human rights and international humanitarian law. He previously worked as a corporate social responsibility consultant, providing insights into broader ESG policy issues.

Paul is a partner in the capital markets group that is part of the financial markets department. Paul's experience is principally on advising major investment banks, in Europe and in Asia, on a wide variety of debt capital markets transactions, complex and innovative structured debt products, and all aspects of derivatives transactions (and in particular, credit and equity derivatives).

David is a structured capital markets specialist covering a range of securitised and OTC derivatives and structured finance transactions. He has a particular focus on risk sharing and synthetic securitisation transactions structured as credit derivatives, financial guarantees and credit insurance contracts and acts for a wide range of arrangers, originators and investors in these products, including public sector institutions. He also has extensive experience of credit, equity and fund-linked products. David also acts for government and multilateral financial institutions on their risk sharing and guarantee schemes including as counsel to the British Business Bank on the UK Government’s COVID-19 guarantee schemes and to the European Investment Fund on its pan-European guarantee schemes, including the European Guarantee Fund.

Michael is a widely acknowledged expert in the field of Intellectual Property, especially in relation to complex, high-value, multi-country patent disputes. He also works closely with our patent attorney team to help clients develop their patent strategies. Michael advises a diverse range of businesses on maximising the protection, enforcement and extraction of value from their intellectual property rights. His principal area of expertise is patents especially multijurisdictional disputes. Michael has represented clients in numerous reported cases, in a diverse range of technologies from pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and medical devices through to electronics, software and communications. He has particular experience in relation to medical devices and Standard Essential Patents and FRAND licensing disputes. Clients also rely on Michael’s considerable experience for advice on risk analysis and freedom to operate opinions and on due diligence for investment, acquisition and licensing transactions. He has extensive experience of assisting clients with their IP strategy and budgets and establishing best practice for the management of their IP portfolio and IP risk. Michael is a registered representative before the Unified Patent Court (UPC), which became operational on 1 June 2023.

Amer is a partner in the Structured Finance and Derivatives Group in London and member of the asset-backed finance and securitisation team. He has extensive experience of a variety of asset-backed finance transactions and securitisations, with a focus on residential mortgage-backed securitisations (RMBS), commercial mortgage-backed securitisations (CMBS), covered bonds, asset sale and warehouse financing arrangements, and secured corporate bonds.

Robert is a partner in the Disputes & Investigations team He specialises in retail and consumer finance litigation, including investigations, general banking disputes and contentious regulatory matters. He has advised on a range of disputes and industry wide issues including consumer credit, mis-selling litigation and unfair terms. He has also acted in complex investment bank litigation and on major international regulatory investigations for retail and investment banks. In addition, Robert regularly advises clients on contentious data protection and privacy matters, and during the past year has been advising financial institutions, asset managers and telecoms clients in particular on data protection litigation, contentious subject access requests, the right to be forgotten, cyber-attack and data breach response and notification. He is a member of the firm’s Data Protection and Privacy group.

Jen Yee specialises in funds finance, real estate finance, emerging markets finance, general lending and advisory work. She acts for both fund managers and banks. She has led transactions involving fund level/Holdco leverage and net asset value (NAV) facilities as well as bridging, portfolio acquisition and investor call facilities. She has also advised on general partner, manager and co-investment facilities and limited partner debt facilities. Her experience covers a wide range of funds, including infrastructure, renewable energy, real estate, large buyout and mid-market funds, venture funds, fund of funds and emerging market funds. The work she does is both domestic and international with structures based in jurisdictions like Luxembourg, Ireland, Germany, France, Delaware, the Cayman Islands, Jersey, Guernsey and Mauritius. Her dedicated team works closely with our global offices and overseas counsel with expertise in funds finance to provide seamless advice across these jurisdictions.

Oliver joined the firm in 2017 and advises mostly financial institutions and corporate clients on derivatives, repos, and related matters. Oliver focusses in particular on rates, FX and commodities hedging and helping clients manage lifecycle and distress events, such as defaults and close-outs. Oliver also specialises in quantitative investment strategies (QIS) and proprietary index / benchmark matters.

Marcin Perzanowski

Marcin Perzanowski is a Partner in the Structured Finance & Derivatives practice of the London office of Simmons & Simmons. Marcin focuses on derivatives and structured product transactions across all asset classes. Marcin has extensive experience in advising on OTC and structured derivatives for banks, corporates, funds, pension schemes and insurance companies. He also frequently assists his clients with respect to different types of collateral and segregation structures, as well as various aspects of securities finance arrangements. Marcin's expertise covers a wide range of products, including funding trades (structured as total return swaps, repurchase agreement or margin loans), equity derivatives (including index and equity linked products), credit derivatives (including credit linked notes and credit linked deposit agreements), commodities and commodity derivatives, as well as various types of FX and interest rates derivatives. He regularly advises on structured notes programmes (including repacks), and investment products referencing proprietary indices, managed accounts and similar structures. Marcin has considerable expertise in advising on the regulatory aspects of derivatives, in particular in respect of the European Market Infrastructure Regulation and its various implementing measures, as well as any related documentation. Marcin has written a submission to the European Parliament and the FCA on behalf of the Association of Pension Lawyers in respect of the new derivatives rules. Marcin's publications include three chapters in an "Equity Derivatives" textbook, and two chapters on credit derivatives in "Sovereign Debt and Debt Restructuring". He has also co-edited the "Commodity Derivatives" textbook. He has completed secondments to The Royal Bank of Scotland plc and HSBC Bank plc, where he advised on various aspects of derivative transactions, including corporate equity derivatives and various investment access products.

Simon is a London based project development and finance lawyer who advises lenders, sponsors, financial investors, procuring authorities and contractors on a wide range of projects in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, covering the energy, water, infrastructure, oil and gas, and mining sectors. Within these sectors he advises in relation to project development, project financing, PPPs, project / concession agreements, production sharing agreements, power / water purchase agreements, other offtake agreements, EPC contracts and operations and maintenance contracts.

Eucharia’s practice covers a wide range of structured capital markets products, encompassing securities, derivatives and related collateral arrangements, repos and securities lending. In particular, Eucharia has many years’ experience acting on repackagings and other structured credit products.

Kathryn is a partner in the London capital markets group and member of the asset-backed finance and securitisation team. Kathryn has extensive experience advising on all forms of structured finance and securitisation transactions with a particular focus on residential mortgage-backed securitisations (RMBS), credit card securitisations (Cards), commercial mortgage-backed securitisations (CMBS), new origination and asset sale transactions and warehousing arrangements. She also advises on secured corporate bonds and whole business securitisations (WBS) (including those backed by infrastructure and utility assets).

Tair specialises in employee incentives and has extensive experience of advising quoted and unquoted companies on a range of employee incentives issues including advising on tax, company law, corporate governance, and employment and regulatory issues as well as the employee incentives aspects of M&A transactions. Tair also has experience in devising and delivering schemes to ensure effective reward and retention by, for example, setting up or changing terms of share schemes including share option schemes, long-term incentive plans, bonus plans, and other bespoke tailored arrangements. Tair is a member of the firm's Accelerate Digital group, focused on guiding clients through digital transformation.

Emily Monastiriotis

Emily is international head of Dispute Resolution and leads the practice firmwide. She specialises in construction disputes, professional indemnity claims and is an expert on cladding. She advises insurers and all sides of the construction industry on a wide range of construction and engineering disputes and has pursued and defended claims for delay and associated costs, final accounts, fees and defective works. Emily is well known for her cladding expertise and handles cladding portfolios for key clients. She also regularly speaks at conferences and industry events on fire safety issues. On the professional indemnity side, Emily acts for PI Insurers and professional insureds - in particular architects, engineers, quantity surveyors and other construction specialists - in professional negligence claims. She is also experienced in domestic and international arbitrations, court proceedings and adjudications, regularly acting in arbitrations involving construction projects in the Middle East (where she travels to frequently).

Felix Zimmermann

Felix is a partner in the firm’s Insurance and Construction group and is based in London, with 3 main strands to his insurance market practice. First, he has 20 years’ experience of advising on defending claims made against professionals (including solicitors, brokers, financial advisers and construction professionals) and directors and officers, usually with the support of their professional indemnity/FI/commercial D&O policies and insurers. Secondly, Felix regularly advises on coverage issue and disputes arising out of PI policies (e.g. on post-Grenfell claims) and on management liability/D&O policies, FI/Bankers Blanket Bond, Warranty & Indemnity Policies, Tax Liability, Political Risk and Trade Credit, cyber policies and aviation policies. Having acted for one of the defendant insurers in the FCA Business Interruption Test Case, Felix also has extensive experience of property and Business Interruption insurance. Finally, Felix is increasingly called upon to advise insurers on the drafting of insurance policies in these classes of business.

Jo is a partner at Simmons & Simmons, leading the indirect tax team. She advises clients on a wide range of complex VAT issues and other indirect taxes. Having previously worked for a Big Four firm, Jo's experience includes a wide range of matters concerning VAT legislation, case law and the practical implementation of VAT changes both within the UK and overseas. She also advises clients on identifying VAT efficiencies, seeking rulings and resolving disputes with tax authorities and she has represented clients on VAT legislation changes, at both the European Commission and HM Treasury.

Darren is a soft IP litigator and brand portfolio manager, an award-winning innovator and a Deputy District Judge in the IPEC (the UK’s specialist IP court). Darren’s practice spans IP litigation in the UK courts, registry disputes at the UKIPO and EUIPO and international trade mark and design prosecution. He works across a range of sectors, in particular the media, technology, finance and fintech sectors. To give a flavour, he has advised clients on intellectual property rights in relation to everything from cartoon characters to whisky bottles, clothing, knitting needles, lingerie, soft drinks, mobile phones, TV programmes, films and hotels. He is an award-winning innovator, twice recognised for his innovative approach to solving legal problems, including by the Financial Times who previously named him Young Innovator of the Year. Darren is also a respected thought leader in the IP community, writing the Retromark round-ups on the IPKat blog, sitting on INTA’s Famous Marks committee and the editorial board of journal JIPLP. Darren also sits as a Deputy District Judge in both the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court and the English County Court. Darren is the creator of Rocketeer, the world’s first AI trade mark lawyer. You can find out more about this product here: Rocketeer.

Cherie is Of Counsel in the Disputes & Investigations team specialising in corporate crime and contentious regulatory investigations. She has significant experience in advising individuals, financial institutions and corporates on bribery and fraud investigations in both the UK and internationally. Cherie is a lead member of Simmons & Simmons’ Sanctions team advising on compliance with UK and EU sanctions regimes. She also has extensive experience of advising on technical money laundering issues, including disclosure obligations, and on implementation of anti-money laundering policies and procedures. Cherie has spent time on secondment to the legal department of an international energy company advising on anti-corruption and anti-money laundering compliance issues.

George is a leading authority on disruptive technologies, primarily in the fields of crypto assets and blockchain. He also specialises in general commercial contracts for the IT and telecommunications sector. George is a partner in our Digital Business group in London. He’s also an expert on crypto assets and the technologies and regulations surrounding blockchain technology. So much so that he’s the board-appointed lawyer for CryptoUK – the UK’s leading crypto assets trade association. George thrives on developing innovative legal solutions for this rapidly evolving industry, informed by his first-hand knowledge of the sector and its commercial challenges. He knows disruptive technologies inside out, which means George’s legal advice is as forward-thinking as the industry itself. As well as being the firm’s go-to expert on crypto and blockchain, George advises on all types of commercial contracts in the IT and telecoms sectors. He’s well-versed in data protection, cyber security, software licensing, procurement and regulatory matters. Since joining Simmons & Simmons in 2007, George has completed secondments at Virgin Media and Telefónica O2, as well as a global financial institution. He became a partner in 2018. George is a member of the firm's Accelerate Digital group, focused on guiding clients through digital transformation. George Morris’s legal expertise and guidance has been invaluable to the creation and design of the product CryptoReviewer.

James is a debt finance expert with a focus on real estate finance (senior / mezz / acquisition / refinancing / distribution / restructuring), but also with experience across multiple product lines and sectors including asset-backed finance, leverage and acquisition finance, general corporate lending and financial restructuring. He has significant experience advising both lenders and borrowers.

James is Head of the firm’s international Insurance and Construction group. He is a renowned litigator, specialising in professional liability, coverage, reinsurance and construction disputes. With over 30 years of experience, James has acted for insurers and their insureds, including solicitors, accountants, brokers, architects, engineers, surveyors and other construction professionals in High Court litigation, arbitration, adjudication and mediation. His practice often includes an international element, with cases spanning the UK, US, Japan and the Middle East, as well as Northern Ireland where he is also qualified.

Jason is a partner in our corporate & commercial group. He has wide experience of advising on public and private M&A, joint ventures, reorganisations and general corporate and commercial matters. He has a particular focus on cross-border transactions and matters. He is frequently active on M&A transactions involving Japanese companies and acts as advisor to a number of leading Japanese groups on their activities internationally.

Jason is a senior partner in our Corporate & Commercial group. He has wide experience of advising on private and public M&A, joint ventures, strategic alliances, investment transactions, reorganisations and general corporate and commercial matters. Jason has a particular focus on cross-border transactions and matters and has led the teams on many of the firm’s highest-profile mandates. He has significant experience in a number of sectors, including financial services, asset management, real estate and technology. For a number of years he led the firm’s Corporate practice in Asia. He is a Japanese speaker and acts as advisor to a number of leading Japanese groups on their activities internationally.

Lydia specialises in intellectual property transactions, including licensing, collaboration agreements, joint ventures, consortium agreements, commercialisation arrangements, monetisations and intellectual property aspects of corporate transactions and financings. Lydia is experienced in advising in a wide range of sectors, but has a particular focus on healthcare and life sciences and digital health. Lydia also specialises in life sciences regulatory compliance, advising on a wide range of issues including product classification, interactions with healthcare professionals, clinical trials (including data protection issues), market access, supply chain requirements, marketing and pharmacovigilance.

Chloe is a managing associate in our Disputes & Investigations team in London and has particular experience in civil fraud and s.90 and s.90A of FSMA liability claims. Her recent experience on high-value civil fraud claims, include acting as the lead associate in the defence of a FSMA s.90A liability claim brought by Hewlett Packard against Sushovan Hussain, the former CFO of Autonomy plc, and Dr Michael Lynch (the former CEO) following Hewlett Packard’s acquisition and subsequent $8.8bn write-down of Autonomy plc. The case was the UK’s biggest fraud trial and judgment is awaited. Chloe is currently advising a substantial UK PLC on the defence of threatened claims by a group of 80 shareholders under s.90A of FSMA. Chloe is also advising an insolvent investment manager on a potential claim against a major professional services company for negligence and fraud. She was the lead associate in the defence of the former COO of Afren Plc, Shahid Ullah, on civil claims brought by Afren Plc and its Nigerian subsidiary for unlawful conduct causing the collapse of the companies. The case was successfully settled. She was also part of the team that advised Grant Thornton in the successful defence of claims brought against it by the Tchenguiz brothers for conspiracy to make fraudulent representations (Tchenguiz & others vs Grant Thornton UK LLP & others). She has advised a global professional services firm in relation to a high-profile dispute involving a large online retailer and a claim of unlawful means conspiracy and advised a listed pensions administrator in relation to a potential fraud claim and associated tax and regulatory penalties resulting from breaches of pensions rules. In addition to her civil fraud practice, Chloe advises on commercial disputes involving financial institutions, including advising a large international bank as to a potential contempt of court claim brought by a company alleging that the bank had breached of a world-wide freezing order.

Camilla de Silva

Camilla is a partner in our Disputes & Investigations team based in London. She brings a unique perspective as a former SFO prosecutor, including experience of settling corporate resolutions from both positions, previously on behalf of the SFO, and now for corporate clients. As an investigations specialist with high quality prosecutorial experience and strong commercial insight, Camilla provides practical legal advice partnering with international corporate clients in the FI, AMIF, Telecoms, Media, Technology, Oil and Gas, Industrial and Lifesciences, sectors to understand their business objectives and wider interests. Camilla advises on all aspects of financial crime, cybercrime and ESG risks that Boards and businesses face in the UK and internationally. This includes managing regulatory and criminal law risk from the start of a process, for example a whistle blower account to the endpoint of an enforcement process and potential satellite shareholder actions. Camilla is instructed to conduct internal investigations, compliance and remediation reviews, and to assess potential investment opportunities for financial crime risks. Her work includes advising corporates and individuals in relation to alleged financial misstatements, modern slavery and supply chain issues, money laundering, facilitation of tax evasion, bribery and corruption, and sanctions breaches and, how to judge and control the dynamic and engagement with domestic and international enforcement agencies.

Eleanore Di Claudio

Eleanore is a managing associate in our Disputes & Investigations team based in London. She is also a qualified Solicitor Advocate (Higher Courts Civil Proceedings). She specialises in litigation and arbitration arising out of commercial contracts and complex transactions involving multiple jurisdictions. Eleanore has a particular focus on contentious competition matters. She has previously been seconded to the litigation divisions of a major bank and a large telecommunications company.

Kirsty is a banking and finance partner with over 20 years of experience across the financial services sector focussing on corporate lending and leveraged finance. She is a partner in our Financial Markets group in London. She has a great track record of advising a broad range of clients including financial institutions and debt funds and also corporate borrowers including multi-nationals and private equity houses. Given her wide ranging experience, Kirsty is uniquely placed to deliver pragmatic and solutions-driven advice whilst navigating high-stress situations and achieving goals on time. She has a specific sector expertise in the Financial Services and the TMT sectors, in particular relating to Data Centres and heads the Simmons global data centre team.

David is a leading corporate partner acting on mergers and acquisitions, disposals, equity investments, joint ventures, re-financings and re-organisations, equity raisings (public and private) as well as strategic advisory work. He acts for corporates, institutions, PE groups and high net worth individuals both on domestic and international transactions. His work covers a number of sectors including asset management, financial institutions, life sciences, TMT as well as energy and infrastructure, real estate and consumer/retail. David has spent many years undertaking transactions in Emerging Markets including in particular Africa.

Marc is a recognised market leader and adviser on energy and infrastructure projects internationally. He has specific expertise in clean energy and sustainable infrastructure, and helping clients investing in new technologies and in new markets. Marc has a particular focus on working with clients on the opportunities and challenges arising from energy transition, decarbonisation and the drive for sustainability, all of which he is passionate about. He advises clients from all industry sectors on sourcing of clean energy, and meeting their sustainability objectives across the supply chain: this includes greenfield project development and finance, implementation of emerging technologies (such as hydrogen and CCUS), and secondary market transactions. Marc has a deep background in "first-in-kind" power, transport and other infrastructure projects throughout their lifecycle, from structuring to development, project financing and secondary market transactions. He provides expertise on all of the commercial and financing contracts required, provides strategic advice and works with clients with a view to the long-term success of an infrastructure project. Marc works with a wide range of clients, including infrastructure funds, corporates, project developers, lenders and government authorities, enabling him to assist clients with all sides of the project equation. He has lived in Europe, Asia and the Middle East and regularly advises clients on projects in all of these markets as well as other regions such as Africa. He is bilingual in English and French and also speaks Spanish well and conversational Japanese.

Emily is a Partner in the Disputes & Investigations team in London, specialising in investigations for corporate crime and contentious regulatory matters. She is recognised as a rising star in her field, spending the last decade working on some of the largest and most high-profile corruption investigations including representing Petrofac Limited in its successful resolution of a Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation into allegations of bribery and advising Barclays on an SFO investigation regarding two capital raisings during the 2008 financial crisis. Her work this year has spanned clients in energy, pharmaceuticals, financial institutions, technology and engineering, IT services, TMT and securities. She was recognised as one of GIR’s Top 100 Women in Investigations 2021. Her work advising individuals has ranged from a multi-billion-dollar fraud involving two prominent Saudi families, to representing two individuals facing INTERPOL Red Notices and various individuals interviewed under caution or as witnesses by external agencies and enforcement authorities. She previously advised a former director at a major multi-national financial institution under investigation by HMRC resulting in no charges being brought against the individual following representations made on his behalf. She regularly advises and provides training on the application of key financial crime legislation and has particular expertise in bribery and money laundering compliance, contributing to Lexis Nexis Practice Notes covering Corporate Crime and to Practical Law Global on anti-corruption issues. As a founding member of Simmons & Simmons eDiscovery experts committee, Emily has comprehensive experience of using eDiscovery review platforms in large scale investigations and disputes. She has been a speaker at Relativity Fest London and regularly provides training (internally and to clients) in this area.

Elliot is a partner in the Financial Markets group in London and specialises in acquisition finance and corporate debt. Consistently helping to deliver first-class outcomes for clients on time and on budget, Elliot advises on a wide range of international transactions with a focus on acquisitions and other event driven financings for banks, borrowers and special situations funds. Elliot advises investment banks and bidders on the implementation of public bids under the Takeover Code and acts for a number of large listed and unlisted corporates on their debt and treasury work. He has also acted on numerous cross-border debt restructurings. Elliot was recently listed as a next generation partner for investment grade and syndicated loans in Legal 500 and is the co-chair of the firm’s Social Mobility Network.

Elliot is a partner in the Financial Markets group in London and specialises in acquisition finance and corporate debt. Consistently helping to deliver first-class outcomes for clients on time and on budget, Elliot advises on a wide range of international transactions with a focus on acquisitions and other event driven financings for banks, borrowers and special situations funds. Elliot advises investment banks and bidders on the implementation of public bids under the Takeover Code and acts for a number of large listed and unlisted corporates on their debt and treasury work. He has also acted on numerous cross-border debt restructurings.

Ben specialises in corporate restructuring and insolvency. His focus is on situations where businesses are distressed, providing strategic advice to boards and stakeholders. Ben is a partner in our Restructuring and Special Situations team in London. He is experienced in advising in situations where companies are, or are likely to become, subject to formal insolvency proceedings, undertaking contingency planning and providing strategic advice to stakeholders, most recently in the airline, real estate and infrastructure sectors. He also has extensive experience in refinancings and distressed M&A.

Jonathan Spencer

Jonathan is a partner in the firm's Insurance and Construction group. His practice primarily focuses on resolving claims against construction professionals/contractors, and also regularly advises London market insurers on complex professional indemnity coverage disputes. Jonathan's experience spans a wide variety of construction disputes involving: iconic buildings; sports grounds; schools/universities; hospitals; large residential schemes; listed buildings; commercial/retail; and renewable energy facilities -in the UK and internationally. His caseload regularly involves mediations, arbitrations, adjudications and High Court litigation. Jonathan also advises construction professionals and their insurers on environmental/ESG risks, as the move to greener construction gathers pace (including modular construction). Jonathan has undertaken a year-long client secondment at a major international insurer, and he has also created the Policy Wording Toolkit -- an online product that outlines key policy coverage issues across several jurisdictions to help insurers manage risk.

Mandy is a highly experienced advisor on all aspects of employment law. She is a trusted advisor to businesses across diverse sectors and is a pragmatic and commercial problem solver. Mandy has developed particular expertise in the tech, media and telecoms (TMT) sector and has worked with hundreds of companies, from those doing their first round of investments through to highly developed, household names. She works for some of the world’s largest media and entertainment companies, as well as health and life sciences businesses. As well as advising on all aspects of the employment relationship including disputes and handling high profile litigation in the tribunal and High Court, she has worked with businesses on culture and strategy in the context of rapid growth and change management.

Alexandra Webster

Alexandra is a managing associate in the Disputes & Investigations group in London. She advises corporates and individuals on complex criminal investigations and proceedings and has particular expertise in managing the strategic, legal and procedural issues that arise in high-value, high-profile cases involving parallel civil litigation. See our website Parallel Proceedings: Pathways to solutions for more information. She was a member of the team awarded Commercial Litigation Team of the Year (Legal Business Awards), Litigation Team of the Year (The Lawyer Awards) and Banking Litigation Team of the Year (Legal Week Commercial Litigation & Arbitration Awards) in 2019, for successfully defending Grant Thornton and others against claims brought by the Tchenguiz brothers. Her recent work also includes: Global financial institution: advising the defendant to a £1bn+ civil fraud claim in the context of a related criminal investigation and prosecution R v Shahenshah and Ullah: defending the former COO of Afren Plc in a Serious Fraud Office prosecution for fraud and money laundering offences, and advising on parallel civil claims and director disqualification proceedings. Alexandra also regularly advises on the application of key financial crime legislation and has particular expertise in bribery, sanctions and money laundering compliance.

David specialises in resolving product liability disputes, and advising on product recalls. Complementary to this, he is experienced in handling recovery claims (domestically and internationally), regulatory investigations and compliance, insurance policy coverage issues, group litigation, and jurisdiction disputes. David routinely advises producers, distributors, retailers and their insurers on a range of product types, such as medical devices, automobiles, toys, and electrical goods. He has particular expertise in the life sciences, tech, food & drink, and retail sectors. He is experienced in robustly defending claims and navigating complex expert evidence, while upholding the reputation of his clients and finding commercially sensible outcomes. He advises on product compliance issues, product safety and corrective action management plans, and stress-testing of due diligence exercised prior to release of products onto the market. His group litigation experience includes co-drafting a claims handling agreement for predictable and cost-effective resolution of approximately 2,000 claims (Linkwise Group Litigation), and leading the defence in the PIP Breast Implant Group Litigation, which culminated in a unanimous Supreme Court win on a discrete insurance issue for his client. David’s life sciences expertise includes advising clients in relation to spinal disc implants, surgical knives, experimental stem cell treatment for cerebral palsy, and pathology reporting for cancer treatment. His tech sector and novel product expertise includes advising on products including firewall devices, lithium-ion batteries, autonomous vehicle technology, and lightweight bullet-proof vests. He regularly advises clients on tomorrow’s technology, and the risks and opportunities they pose.

David specialises in resolving product liability disputes, and advising on product recalls. Complementary to this, he is experienced in handling recovery claims (domestically and internationally), regulatory investigations and compliance, insurance policy coverage issues, group litigation, and jurisdiction disputes. David routinely advises producers, distributors, retailers and their insurers on a range of product types, such as medical devices, automobiles, toys, and electrical goods. He has particular expertise in the life sciences, tech, food & drink, and retail sectors. He is experienced in robustly defending claims and navigating complex expert evidence, while upholding the reputation of his clients and finding commercially sensible outcomes. He advises on product compliance issues, product safety and corrective action management plans, and stress-testing of due diligence exercised prior to release of products onto the market. His group litigation experience includes co-drafting a claims handling agreement for predictable and cost-effective resolution of approximately 2,000 claims (Linkwise Group Litigation), and leading the defence in the PIP Breast Implant Group Litigation, which culminated in a unanimous Supreme Court win on a discrete insurance issue for his client. David’s life sciences expertise includes advising clients in relation to spinal disc implants, surgical knives, experimental stem cell treatment for cerebral palsy, and pathology reporting for cancer treatment. His tech sector and novel product expertise includes advising on products including firewall devices, lithium-ion batteries, autonomous vehicle technology, and lightweight bullet-proof vests. He regularly advises clients on tomorrow’s technology, and the risks and opportunities they pose.

Richard is a supervising associate and solicitor advocate in our contentious tax team. He advises clients on a wide range of complex domestic and international tax disputes and investigations, including commercial claims with tax elements and public law claims such as judicial review. Richard achieves good outcomes for clients under enquiry from the tax authorities and in mediation. He also has extensive experience of cases before the Tax Tribunals and Higher Courts (including the High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court). Richard works closely with his clients and Counsel teams to develop the right case strategy and then focuses hard on delivering a successful result.

Frederick Nicolle

Fred is a UK and European qualified patent attorney (CPA, EPA) with over 15 years experience specialising in patent prosecution and contentious matters for the life sciences sector. He has particular expertise in pharmaceuticals, medical devices, consumer health products, cosmetics, foods and health supplements. He graduated from the University of Cambridge with a Master of Natural Sciences degree with a final year research project in synthetic organic chemistry. Fred has extensive experience of contentious patent proceedings in opposition at the European Patent Office and in national litigation, having defended patents for numerous commercially important products. Notable examples include the defence of patents for Noctiva™ (desmopressin acetate nasal spray), Bendeka® (bendamustine HCl injection), Revlimid® (lenalidomide), Xeplion®/Invega Sustenna® (paliperidone palmitate), wound dressings, and contact lenses. Fred is a registered representative before the Unified Patent Court (UPC), which became operational on 1 June 2023.

Frances Doherty

Frances is a corporate lawyer specialising in venture and private equity funding, and transactional M&A, in the UK and internationally. She has worked in the growth company ecosystem for more than 20 years and acts as a trusted legal adviser to a large number of technology companies and investors. Frances is co-lead of the Buy, Build and Invest group which is a key pillar of Simmons Emerging Tech offering.

David advises clients across all aspects of contentious and non-contentious EU and UK antitrust and competition law. His merger control work has included high profile UK and global transactions where he has managed the regulatory approval processes within the UK, the EU, and around the globe. His contentious work includes acting for clients subject to the European Commission interchange fee investigations as well as Competition and Markets Authority pharmaceutical probes. David has experience of working within a broad range of industry sectors including financial services, retail and various consumer goods, technology media & telecommunications, energy and infrastructure. David has spent time on secondment to the CMA where he was part of the policy team, and into the competition team of a multinational universal bank.

Douglas Robinson

Douglas specialises in complex, high-value disputes, including litigation, regulatory investigations, and internal investigations. He acts for clients across a range of sectors with a particular focus on crypto, FinTech and banking. He also contributes to Crypto View. Douglas is experienced in handling litigation with parallel regulatory proceedings and enforcement actions by multiple regulators. Recent work includes acting for the defendant to a £1.5bn civil fraud claim in PCP Capital Partners LLP v Barclays Bank plc, for a crypto exchange provider appearing before the FCA’s RDC and for a firm subject to a regulatory investigation into FinTech. Douglas also provides advice to clients on anti-bribery and anti-money laundering compliance. Douglas has completed secondments in litigation and investigations roles for two leading global financial institutions, spending over a year in-house.

Jason has a wealth of experience advising property companies, institutional owners, occupiers, developers, retailers, banks and financial institutions on the whole range of traditional property litigation issues including: rent review, dilapidations, rights of light and other easements, forfeiture, alienation, covenant/contractual interpretation and enforcement, debt/rent and service charge recovery and property related insolvency.

Jason has a wealth of experience advising property companies, institutional owners, occupiers, developers, retailers, banks and financial institutions on the whole range of traditional property litigation issues including: rent review, dilapidations, rights of light and other easements, forfeiture, alienation, covenant/contractual interpretation and enforcement, debt/rent and service charge recovery and property related insolvency.

Emma specialises in product liability matters, including property damage and injury claims, and the policy indemnity issues which are frequently associated with those claims. She often works with manufacturers, distributors and retailers, and their insurers, from a range of sectors, including retail, food and drink, life sciences and the construction industry. She also has expertise in handling product recall claims and related regulatory investigations. She commonly deals with claims which involve international supply chains and regularly provides advice in relation to the jurisdictional challenges which these claims can present. In addition to product liability matters, she handles a range of property damage claims typically involving fire or escape of water within residential or commercial premises. She is well versed in dealing with the policy indemnity issues which often accompany public and product liability claims. She advised in relation to financial loss extensions, considered the concept of "damage" in admixture claims and advised in relation to the application of recall and replacement exclusions. She has also considered the remedies available to insurers for the breach of risk and claims conditions, and arguments surrounding waiver and estoppel.

Duncan has extensive experience in all aspects of commercial development. From offices, mixed-use schemes to logistics. Over a number of years, he has acted for institutional developers and global tech companies on both the developer and occupier side. He also has a focus on data centre procurement (for both developers and occupiers) as well as renewable energy infrastructure. Duncan has extensive experience in advising clients on all major forms of construction procurement including traditional contracting, design and build, construction management, and EPC projects, both in the UK and internationally. Duncan also works closely with his colleagues in the firm's Asset Management & Investment Funds, Financial Institutions and Healthcare and Life Sciences sector groups providing non-contentious transactional construction advice to owners, developers, occupiers and funders.

Jonathon Wilkes

Jonathon is a partner in our real estate team and has wide ranging experience in investment transactions, development projects and complex asset management. He has a particular specialism working with corporate-wrapped structures with a focus on development management and joint ventures. Jonathon represents a broad spectrum of clients including institutions, large property companies, private equity houses and private wealth clients. Jonathon is particularly experienced in transactions involving logistics, retail, offices and hospitality and leisure.

Jonathan Schuman

Jonathan is a Managing Associate in the firm’s Disputes & Investigations team in London. His practice focuses on acting for clients on high-stakes civil disputes and regulatory investigations, often spanning multiple jurisdictions. Jonathan has experience advising clients on complex technology disputes and regulatory investigations. He has advised on contentious issues concerning software licences, telecoms equipment, IT services, outsourcing arrangements, digital assets (including cryptocurrency and utility tokens), and artificial intelligence (AI). Jonathan is one of the firm’s AI specialists, and has advised some of the world’s largest companies on the legal and ethical issues relating to AI, including compliance with the EU AI Act, AI governance, and responsible AI. Jonathan has considerable experience in both commercial and investor-state arbitration, as well as related proceedings in the English courts. He has acted in and advised on arbitrations under a range of procedural rules including ICC, LCIA, and UNCITRAL, and has acted for both investors and states in relation to the enforcement of ICSID awards. Jonathan also regularly advises on public international law issues. He is a qualified Solicitor Advocate, and has appeared in both commercial and investment arbitration hearings. He is listed as a 'Leading Associate' for International Arbitration by Legal 500 (2024). Jonathan also has experience in English High Court litigation. Two of his cases have been featured in The Lawyer’s Top 20 cases, both of which resulted in successful outcomes for his clients at trial.

Marisa Broughton

Marisa is a Chartered Trade Mark Attorney specialising in brand protection and enforcement. She has significant experience in the strategic management of trade mark and design portfolios working with clients in a range of sectors including healthcare, hospitality, technology and fashion. Marisa advises on complex contentious matters including trade mark opposition and cancellation proceedings, infringement, IP contract disputes, bad faith and multi-jurisdictional issues. She appears regularly before the UK Intellectual Property Office and was ranked 10th in the league table of Trade Mark Attorney appearances before the UK IPO for the period 2016 - 2020. She works to develop longstanding, trusted relationships with clients, delivering commercial advice and practical solutions in fast paced sectors.

David advises both institutional and independent clients on constitutional and governance arrangements, restructuring, mergers and acquisitions and raising funds. He specialises in corporate advisory, corporate finance and transactional work, particularly within the financial services and wealth management sectors, and for investment trusts. His work for quoted companies includes leading the firm’s corporate compliance, annual reporting and general meeting work for listed clients. David advises listed, AIM-traded and other public and private companies on various company law and compliance matters, including in relation to the Companies Act 2006, listing rules, disclosure and transparency rules, UK corporate governance code and AIM rules. He advises investment trusts on fundraising and other matters, including a bonus issue of subscription shares for Fidelity Japanese Values plc which closed in summer 2014. David acts for a number of limited liability partnerships on structuring, constitutional and governance arrangements, particularly within the wealth management sector. He has advised on strategic and complex restructuring and transactional matters for wealth managers, insurers, insurance brokers and other authorised firms and individuals, both within the UK and internationally.

Tom is a managing associate in our Disputes & Investigations practice in London. He is a member of our Band 1 Criminal Law team and specialises in complex enforcement, regulatory and internal investigations into allegations of bribery & corruption, fraud, money laundering, financial and trade sanctions, export control and related matters. Tom regularly supports clients' in relation to the application of financial crime legislation and has particular expertise advising on the application of the UK sanctions regime. He has extensive experience advising in relation to investigations run by the UK Serious Fraud Office, the Police, the Financial Conduct Authority, the Financial Reporting Council, HMRC and the Insolvency Service. He also has broad experience of licencing processes with the Office for Financial Sanctions Implementation, the Export Control Joint Unit and various international sanctions regulators. Tom has worked at Simmons & Simmons since 2015. During that time he has been seconded to Shell and to the High Court. He has an MBA in Legal Services.

Alexander Keepin

Alexander is a partner in our Public Markets Group within our UK Corporate practice and specialises in transactions involving listed issuers on both the Main Market and AIM. He also has considerable experience in mergers and acquisitions, JVs and takeovers, including reverse takeovers. Alexander acts for both issuers and underwriters/sponsors on a range of ECM transactions including equity offerings, listings and transactions on the London markets, almost exclusively on transactions involving natural resources companies. Alexander is recognised in the Hall of Fame for mining in the Legal 500 and is recognised as a Leading Individual for both Mining and Capital Markets: AIM by Chambers and Partners. Alexander’s practice also includes acting for private equity funds and sovereign wealth funds on transactions in the natural resources sector. Alexander is also closely involved with UK regulatory and corporate governance developments and provides regular advice and training to clients on the FCA’s sponsor regime, the UK Listing Rules, the AIM Rules, the UK Prospectus Regulation as well as the UK Market Abuse and UK Corporate Governance Codes.

Sophie is a Partner in the Digital Business Group. Her clients are predominantly in the technology, telecoms, financial services and fintech industries and she advises them on a range of complex commercial and regulatory topics, including in relation to regulated outsourcings and data protection. She has spent time on secondment with a number of major financial institutions and works very closely with a number of significant financial technology providers. Sophie regularly acts both on the customer-side as well as on the service provider-side. The deep knowledge this gives her of how clients in the technology, telecoms, financial services and fintech industries operate enables her to provide current, practical and effective advice. As well as providing guidance on regulatory requirements in the outsourcing and operational resilience space, Sophie advises on crypto and blockchain issues, data issues and all types of commercial contracts in the IT and telecoms sectors. Sophie is the AI lead for the Financial Institutions Sector and also co-lead of the Buy, Build and Invest group which is a key pillar of Simmons Emerging Tech offering.

Steve is a Partner in the firm's dispute resolution department and specialises in complex construction disputes. Steve handles complex construction and engineering matters. He represents developers, contractors, engineers and architects in public and private projects, particularly in the infrastructure, power and commercial development sectors. Steve's practice has spanned across Europe and Asia for many years, and he is well versed in infrastructure disputes in Asia. Steve specialises in International Arbitration conducted under all major institutional rules and seats. He is also experienced in litigation in common and civil law jurisdictions, and adjudication. Steve is a member of the Society of Construction Law. He is regularly invited to speak at industry wide conferences.

Laura is a managing associate in our pensions practice in London. Laura advises both pension scheme trustees and employers on a range of pensions law matters. Laura has particular experience of working on pensions de-risking initiatives (such as buy-ins and pension increase exchange exercises) and on pension benefit redesigns and consultation exercises. Laura also advises on pension scheme member disputes and queries and the pensions aspects of corporate acquisitions.

Alex is the head of the firm's Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) sector and a specialist in technology transactions as well as data compliance and commercialisation. He is a partner in our Digital Business Group in London. He’s an expert in advising users and suppliers of technology products and services. He is also a leading expert on data protection and privacy and he guided a large number of clients through their GDPR implementation projects. His experience on technology and outsourcing transactions includes handling large scale, complex outsourcings, software development, licensing and maintenance, telecoms equipment and services contracts and contracts for cloud services. Alexander is adept at making the complex simple and finding practical solutions to legal rules and problems. Since joining Simmons & Simmons in 1997, Alexander has been on secondments to clients such as Virgin Media and O2. He became a partner in 2007 and was appointed as TMT Sector Head in 2015. Alexander is a member of the firm's Accelerate Digital group, focused on guiding clients through digital transformation. Alex Brown’s legal expertise and guidance has been invaluable to the creation and design of the product CtrlTransfer.

Imran Iqbal-Mian

Imran is a finance lawyer in the Banking group of the London office. He works on a wide range of finance transactions, including advising lenders and borrowers on general corporate lending, acquisition financings and funds finance. Since joining Simmons & Simmons in 2015, Imran has completed 3 secondments to 3 separate financial institutions including one of Europe's largest asset managers where he worked within their Legal department. Most recently, Imran was seconded to a British universal bank where he worked within their Transaction Management team.

James is a debt finance expert with a focus on real estate finance (senior / mezz / acquisition / refinancing / distribution / restructuring), but also with experience across multiple product lines and sectors including asset-backed finance, leverage and acquisition finance, general corporate lending and financial restructuring. He has significant experience advising both lenders and borrowers.

Kamal is a partner and a debt finance expert in our international banking team, bringing a specialist offering in real estate finance and loan on loan finance transactions in the real estate finance market. Kamal acts for both lenders and borrowers. His experience includes investment and development financings involving a wide range of real estate classes (including office, retail, hotel, logistics, healthcare, PRS, services office and student accommodation). Kamal has particular expertise in advising on senior and mezzanine financings and cross-border financings (having worked on financings where assets have been located in Germany, Netherlands, Ireland, Portugal, France, Spain and Italy). Kamal also has experience of restructurings and enforcements.

Ashika has a wide range of experience in dealing with commercial landlord and tenant disputes. She acts for landlords, property developers and commercial tenants.

Amie specialises in real estate litigation and has a wide range of experience in advising on contentious issues for landlords, tenants and developers. Her work covers all aspects of traditional estate management work including commercial lease renewals, break notices, forfeiture, dilapidations, assignments, commercial debt recovery, lease interpretation and property related insolvency issues. In addition Amie also has extensive experience and interest in dealing with possession actions against trespassers.

William Dunning

William is a supervising associate in the firm’s Disputes & Investigations group in London. He routinely advises major corporations on disputes across a range of sectors and on global AI regulatory compliance affairs. William is an expert in AI law and regulation and is ranked by Legal 500 as a Leading Associate for Artificial Intelligence, as well as being listed as a key lawyer for Commercial Litigation: Premium. William has written extensively on legal issues relating to AI, including contributing chapters to leading AI law books. He also speaks regularly on AI law at industry events and educational institutions. William is also a member of the firm’s Cross-Border Arbitration Group and has experience advising and representing clients in arbitration under the LCIA, ICC, HKIAC and UNCITRAL rules, as well as in various arbitration-related court applications. He is a member of the LCIA and a qualified Solicitor Advocate (Higher Rights Civil).

Craig Kirkham-Wilson

Craig specialises in complex tax investigations and litigation. Qualified as a Higher Courts solicitor advocate for civil cases, Craig supports clients at all stages of a dispute, from initial discussions through to written and oral advocacy. Craig works closely with clients and counsel to develop a clear strategy from the start of a matter and see it through to successful conclusion. Craig is equally comfortable conducting proceedings before the tax tribunals, the English courts, and in arbitration. He guides clients through the process of alternative dispute resolution with HMRC and represents clients in mediation. His tax investigations practice covers the whole spectrum of contentious tax issues, from internal tax reviews to managing mixed civil and criminal investigations by HMRC and other regulators. He is often instructed by clients looking to test opinions they have received from other tax advisers, and to identify alternative approaches. Craig also acts in commercial claims against tax advisers and against counterparties on matters arising from tax provisions in transaction documents.

Peter is a managing associate in the Employment group and is involved in both contentious and non-contentious employment law issues. Peter has worked on Employment Tribunal claims covering claims of unfair dismissal, whistleblowing, sex discrimination, sexual-orientation discrimination, race discrimination and TUPE on behalf of a number of large organisations. He also provides day to day employment law advice encompassing grievance and disciplinary investigations, regulatory queries and multijurisdictional employment projects.

Trevor Cosgrove

Trevor focuses his construction practice on the real estate and infrastructure sectors both in the United Kingdom and internationally. Trevor has extensive experience in all aspects of development and infrastructure projects including advising developers, corporate occupiers, including banks, other financial institutions, and multinational companies in relation to their headquarters requirements, as well as in relation to real estate and development financings. Trevor provides advice to clients in all sectors of the real estate market including residential (Build to rent), student accommodation (PBSA), office, out of town retail development, data centres and logistics and distribution centres. Trevor’s clients include developers, joint ventures, purchasers, tenants, landlords, and funders of office, residential, university, and retail space. He also represents private equity funds, fund managers, investors, and developers of residential and office portfolios. Trevor has advised on all major forms of construction procurement including traditional procurement, design and build, construction management and prime contracting using both standard and bespoke forms of building and EPC Contracts. Trevor also has significant experience in drafting and negotiating EPC, O&M and Long-Term Services Agreements in relation to the infrastructure, rail and government accommodation sectors. Trevor works closely with colleagues in each of the 4 main sectors of the firm providing non-contentious construction advice where required in relation to development agreements, agreements for lease, forward funding and facility agreements.

Elizabeth Davison

Elizabeth is a partner in the firm’s Disputes & Investigations team. She represents a variety of financial institutions and commercial clients in high-value disputes and contentious regulatory and internal investigations. Elizabeth’s litigation practice includes a focus on banking related misconduct, complex investment products and cross-border competition follow-on damages claims (including relating to benchmark manipulation). Elizabeth also has a strong advisory practice providing advice to clients on how to mitigate legal risks associated with significant market events (such as the effects of Covid-19 and Brexit) and regulatory developments (for example, the increased focus on firms’ culture and conduct). Elizabeth is a member of the Law Society’s Private International Law sub-committee and regularly contributes as an industry expert on matters relating to civil justice (including governing law, jurisdiction, arbitration, process agency and sovereign immunity). In addition, she is interested in public law issues relating to the financial services industry. Elizabeth enjoys exploring the positive effect developments in technology can have on the way in which legal services are provided to clients to maximise costs efficiency and accessibility. For example, she developed Disputes Aviator, an online risk management tool which won the ‘Most Innovative Use of Technology’ at The Lawyer Awards and was shortlisted for an FT Innovation Award. Since then, she has continued to deliver smarter solutions for clients that draw on a diverse blend of legal and technical skills.

Barry is a UK based real estate lawyer with over 20 years experience acting on all aspects of real estate investment, development and financing. He acts for a range of clients including institutional, private equity and ultra-high net worth investors. Barry is sought after for his commercial and solutions-oriented approach with the focus on achieving the client’s desired outcomes in the most efficient manner. Barry advises clients who own and operate businesses where real estate is core to the business such as care homes, motorway service areas and electric vehicle charging. He is a leading specialist in the data centre sector advising data centre developers, investors, operators and customers. He has acted on a range of data centre transactions including development, leasing and service agreements, sales, mergers and acquisitions and financings in multiple jurisdictions. He jointly leads Simmons' multidisciplinary cross border data centre team. Barry is also highly experienced in restructuring and special situations having acted on numerous restructurings and enforcements in real estate and real estate intensive scenarios. His clients in this space include insolvency practitioners, financial institutions and buyers who value his ability to focus on real risks and deliver value.

Oliver s’Jacob

Oliver is a partner in our Corporate group in London, and leads the firm’s private equity real estate offering. With over 20 years of experience, Oliver has worked on a wide variety of transactions in the real estate and infrastructure space, including joint ventures, club deals, major developments, strategic M&A (both public and private) and restructurings. He has guided clients through structuring and executing their real estate investments in most European jurisdictions. Oliver’s expertise spans most real asset classes, having assisted clients acquire or operate not just traditional property types such as offices, shopping centres, logistics warehouses and residential assets (including student housing), but also real estate-intensive businesses and/or infrastructure assets, such as hotels, hospitals, data centres, schools, science parks and football clubs. In addition to working on “downstream” real estate and infrastructure investments, Oliver has helped clients with fund formation, establishing new management platforms and “PropTech” investments. Oliver represents a wide range of clients, including some of the world’s largest private equity real estate firms and other institutional investors, asset managers and property developers.

Raghav is a Partner in the UK Corporate team. He has a broad practice covering private and public M&A with a particular focus on private markets transactions by a range of clients - listed and other large corporates (including financial institutions), a range of private funds and trading houses (including PE) and management. Raghav has advised on M&A in a variety of sectors, with particular interest in the technology, infrastructure and energy and financial sectors but also including real estate, telecoms, manufacturing and IP-reliant businesses. A core part of his practice involves providing counsel on the sale and acquisition (including carve-outs) of multi-jurisdictional businesses, cross-border joint ventures, regulated transactions and private fundraises. He also advises regularly on public company matters and related rules (such as the code and listing rules), with a focus on shareholder activism and governance issues.

Kim Farrar is a senior associate in the UK Corporate team and has extensive experience advising on domestic and cross-border M&A transactions. Kim regularly advises clients, particularly asset managers and investment funds, on their acquisitions, disposals and investments. She also advises on corporate joint ventures arrangements, from the structuring to the asset acquisition stage, and with a particular focus on the real estate sector.

Joanne is Of Counsel in the Energy, Natural Resources & Infrastructure group in London. She has extensive experience in the development, structuring and financing of energy and infrastructure projects worldwide, many of which are ‘first of a kind’ projects. Joanne advises clients from all around the world on the development and financing of projects across all types of energy, resources and infrastructure, working with commercial banks, multilateral institutions, corporate sponsors and governments. Joanne has deep experience in a wide range of sectors, geographies and situations which allow her to provide clients with solutions-based and commercially robust advice which is suitable for the jurisdictions involved. Joanne advises clients on their most complex and challenging projects, in a wide range of countries. Joanne’s recent experience includes green and conventional power, having worked on power projects including hydroelectric, wind, solar, biomass and gas, as well as infrastructure and new technologies such as hydrogen. Joanne specialises in project finance work in emerging markets and has led teams advising on deals across Africa, as well as in central Asia, the middle east and Eastern Europe. Although based in London, Joanne regularly advises international clients including commercial banks, development finance institutions and multilaterals such as the World Bank Group. Joanne is regularly appointed to advise governments on first-in-country deals where structuring and risk allocation are crucial. Joanne is a key member of our team, providing top quality service to clients. Our sector specialists deliver expert support on some of the most complex energy transition and decarbonisation projects (including CCUS), renewables and power projects, world-class mining projects, large-scale oil and gas projects and first-of-a-kind infrastructure projects.

Matthew Monahan

Matt is a senior capital markets partner with over 20 years’ experience advising on derivatives and structured finance transactions. Matt is one of the leading practitioners in the risk sharing and synthetic securitisation market and advises a wide range of investors and arranger/originators on transactions in multiple jurisdictions and structures. Matt also advises several dealers on the multi-dealer SPIRE repackaging platform and on their proprietary repackaging and structured products programmes and bespoke SPV-based transactions. Matt also has extensive experience working with leading financial institutions on innovative OTC derivatives and repo financing transactions.

Rory specialises in debt capital markets transactions. He advises on the full range of debt and equity-linked products and works with a broad range of clients in numerous jurisdictions. Rory’s clients include corporates, investment banks, funds, sovereigns and supranationals. He has extensive experience in MTN programmes, standalone bond issues, commercial paper, regulatory capital, private placements, liability management exercises and secured, convertible and corporate hybrid offerings. He also regularly advises corporate treasury teams in relation to their balance sheet management activities and disclosure obligations. He takes pride in delivering pragmatic and innovative solutions focused on the commercial objectives of the client.

Corinne specialises in energy and infrastructure project development and finance. She advises developers and borrowers in connection with project developments, financings, debt and corporate restructurings and acquisitions and disposals. Corinne is Of Counsel in the firm’s Energy, Natural Resources and Infrastructure team in London. Her most recent work includes advising: a Nigerian gas seller in connection with a French language gas sales agreement with the Benin utility; a Romanian alumina producer in connection with a facility with the Black Sea Trade and Development Bank; and European sellers in the disposal and restructuring of their logistics infrastructure portfolios in Europe. Corinne has also been involved in a number of project developments in Africa over the years, including in Cameroon, Sierra Leone and Ghana.

Katie is a solicitor and supervising associate in our Contentious Tax team. She works on the full range of contentious issues relating to both direct and indirect taxes, with a particular interest in tax-related judicial review claims and VAT issues. In addition to her focus on tax disputes and investigations, her experience extends to VAT advisory and accounting issues including complex partial exemption disputes.

Robert is a contentious financial markets litigation specialist of over 25 years' experience and is recognised as one of the leading practitioners in the field. Over recent years Robert has become perhaps the most prominent and experienced contentious asset management specialist in the City. Robert’s practice includes: asset management disputes and regulatory investigations structured products and derivatives disputes contentious regulatory and investigations exchange based product and commodities disputes

Alexander Thavenot

Alexander specialises in complex cross-border disputes and investigations, with a focus on wholesale banking and wealth management. Alexander is a partner and solicitor advocate in the dispute resolution group in London and Bristol. He regularly acts for international financial institutions and asset managers on disputes involving structured products, derivatives, asset financing, real estate, and commodities. His recent experience includes the defence of a $800m dishonest assistance claim, the defence of a £30m swaps misselling claim, a claim for breach of put options, debt recovery and enforcement proceedings, shareholder disputes, and internal investigations into trader misconduct.

Ed specialises in handling complex financial and regulatory disputes for financial institutions and has close to 30 years’ experience of advising clients in this area. Ed also represents clients on corruption and civil fraud related matters, notably in the area of suspected corrupt payments.

Lawrence is a partner in our UK Digital Business group. He advises clients on complex (and frequently regulated) technology transactions and on cross-border data protection matters. He has particular experience in advising on large-scale cloud services and other technology transactions. Regularly acting both for customers and suppliers, he helps the parties get to the point quickly in negotiations. As co-lead of our Data Protection Cross-Border Group, Lawrence is responsible for driving forward collaboration in this area. He has a particular focus on issue-spotting and developing user-friendly processes and products to help clients to tackle complex data-related matters.

Lawrence is a partner in our UK Digital Business group. He advises clients on complex (and frequently regulated) technology transactions and on cross-border data protection matters. Highlighted in the Legal 500 2018 for his “methodical approach”, he has a deep understanding of the laws and regulations that apply to technology and financial services sector clients and is therefore able to provide them with sector-specialised advice. He has particular experience in advising on large-scale cloud services and other technology transactions. Regularly acting both for customers and suppliers, he helps the parties get to the point quickly in negotiations. As co-lead of our Data Protection Cross-Border Group, Lawrence is responsible for driving forward collaboration in this area. He has a particular focus on issue-spotting and developing user-friendly processes and products to help clients to tackle complex data-related matters. Lawrence joined us in 2003 and has spent time on secondment with a global financial institution, RBS and SEI Investments. Lawrence is a member of the firm's Accelerate Digital group, focused on guiding clients through digital transformation. Lawrence Brown’s legal expertise and guidance has been invaluable to the creation and design of the product CtrlTransfer.

Stephanie Featherstone

Steph is a partner in the UK Corporate/M&A group. She provides corporate advice to companies and financial institutions on a wide range of issues including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, corporate fundraisings and corporate reorganisations. She has significant experience in complex cross border M&A and joint ventures. Steph is a member of the firm's Accelerate Digital group, focused on guiding clients through digital transformation.

Dan is an associate in our pensions practice in London, advising employers and pension scheme Trustees on a number of issues. These include, for example, advising on notifiable events for scheme Trustees, employer-related investments, pension sharing orders, defined benefit to defined contribution transfers, and clearance applications to HMRC. Dan recently completed a six-month secondment in the Employment legal team of a global bank.

Alejandro Guerrero

Alejandro is a partner and co-head of our EU Competition Law and Tech Regulation practice based in Brussels and in Madrid. He currently specialises in antitrust and commercial regulation, compliance and investigations, as well as in related disputes and litigation, in a variety of sectors including TMT, energy, consumer products and e-commerce. Specifically, Alejandro advises clients on the interplay between competition law and the GDPR, cybersecurity, and other related aspects of EU tech and platform regulations. Throughout his career, he has had first-hand and material involvement in important competition matters in the TMT sector, including two of the four Google EU investigations since 2010, and two four-to-three mergers in the telecoms sector (WIND/Hutchison/JV and Telefónica Deutschland/E-Plus). He has developed his expertise on competition and data privacy law and policy, being CIPP/E certified under the IAPP and having advised and represented international corporations on numerous on EU privacy and data protection compliance matters, both at national level and from a U.S.-EU standpoint. Today, he also advises clients on the impact on their business of future EU regulation, such as the AI Act, the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act. Alejandro originally trained at the energy merger unit of the European Commission. He has represented and acted for clients in numerous mergers across a variety of sectors. Over the years, he has also represented and advised clients in numerous antitrust and cartel investigations, including successfully applying for immunity and leniency for a major financial institution in numerous EU cartel investigations, successfully defending a financial institution from formal allegations made by the European Commission in the CDS Information Market case, successfully defending a toy manufacturer against an EU inspection, and successfully defending cosmetics and pharmaceutical companies against investigations and fining decisions from European authorities. Alejandro also advises companies on ESG regulation and on the interplay between these rules and competition law and investigations. He follows closely the enactment and application of bills and laws such as the CSRD, the CS3D and the ESG Rating Regulation, counselling clients on the adoption of compliance measures and reporting and due diligence requirements.

Olivier Mignolet

Olivier specialises in commercial law and commercial litigation/arbitration, with a particular emphasis on regulatory legislation in the healthcare and life sciences sector, distribution law, real estate and intellectual property rights. Olivier is the local head of the dispute resolution practice in Belgium. He is also a member of the firm's crime, fraud & investigations group. Olivier has in particular gained significant experience of advising companies in the healthcare and life sciences sector. Olivier handles complex litigation and arbitration matters. He is recognised as one of the leading Healthcare & Life Sciences lawyers in Belgium. He represents and advises industry clients of all sizes from Top 10 global pharmaceutical and medical devices companies to Belgian biotechs, as well as trade associations. Olivier has also been a part-time lecturer at the University of Louvain (UCL) for 12 years and he is a member of CEPANI /CEPINA (Belgian centre for arbitration and mediation). Olivier has published articles and books on civil procedure, arbitration and pharmaceutical law.

Annabelle Bruyndonckx

With over 25 years of experience in advising clients in the Healthcare & Life Sciences industries, Annabelle Bruyndonckx is recognised as one of the leading sector lawyers in Belgium. Strongly focused on Medtech and the digitalisation of (consumer) healthcare, Annabelle assists international pharmaceutical and biotech companies and global medical device manufacturers, as well as food supplements and cosmetic businesses. As litigation specialist and regulatory expert, her practice at Simmons & Simmons LLP covers all parts of regulated products’ life cycle from R&D to marketing authorisation/CE marking, qualification issues, pricing and reimbursement, manufacture and distribution, public procurement, advertising, compliance, and product liability. Annabelle heads the Regulatory Affairs Education Group & is a board member of Healixia, the Belgian community of professionals involved in the lifecycle of medicines, medical devices, in-vitro diagnostics, and other health-related products. She is a regular speaker at international Healthcare and Life Sciences conferences.

Eric is a partner in our Brussels office, and heads the Belgian Banking & Finance practice. He is an expert in acquisition & leveraged finance, real estate finance, corporate lending and trade & export finance. He acts for both borrowers and lenders, and advises in the English, Dutch and French language. He is also an experienced adviser on restructurings.

Member of the Brussels Bar and associate in the corporate finance department, Martin is involved in national and international finance and M&A transactions, advising major commercial and investment banks, private equity funds and corporates in various leveraged, corporate finance and project finance deals, including domestic and cross-border corporate lending, real estate finance, acquisition finance, debt restructuring, insolvency, structured finance, project finance and securities and derivatives.

Alejandro Guerrero

Alejandro is a partner and co-head of our EU Competition Law and Tech Regulation practice based in Brussels and in Madrid. He currently specialises in antitrust and commercial regulation, compliance and investigations, as well as in related disputes and litigation, in a variety of sectors including TMT, energy, consumer products and e-commerce. Specifically, Alejandro advises clients on the interplay between competition law and the GDPR, cybersecurity, and other related aspects of EU tech and platform regulations. Throughout his career, he has had first-hand and material involvement in important competition matters in the TMT sector, including two of the four Google EU investigations since 2010, and two four-to-three mergers in the telecoms sector (WIND/Hutchison/JV and Telefónica Deutschland/E-Plus). He has developed his expertise on competition and data privacy law and policy, being CIPP/E certified under the IAPP and having advised and represented international corporations on numerous on EU privacy and data protection compliance matters, both at national level and from a U.S.-EU standpoint. Today, he also advises clients on the impact on their business of future EU regulation, such as the AI Act, the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act. Alejandro originally trained at the energy merger unit of the European Commission. He has represented and acted for clients in numerous mergers across a variety of sectors. Over the years, he has also represented and advised clients in numerous antitrust and cartel investigations, including successfully applying for immunity and leniency for a major financial institution in numerous EU cartel investigations, successfully defending a financial institution from formal allegations made by the European Commission in the CDS Information Market case, successfully defending a toy manufacturer against an EU inspection, and successfully defending cosmetics and pharmaceutical companies against investigations and fining decisions from European authorities. Alejandro also advises companies on ESG regulation and on the interplay between these rules and competition law and investigations. He follows closely the enactment and application of bills and laws such as the CSRD, the CS3D and the ESG Rating Regulation, counselling clients on the adoption of compliance measures and reporting and due diligence requirements.

Nele is a supervising associate in our Brussels-based dispute resolution group. She specialises in regulatory and compliance advice on behalf of pharmaceutical and medical device companies, as well as medical technology and digital health businesses, consumer health companies, and significant players in other highly regulated industries. Nele advises on a wide range of issues throughout the entire life span of the product, from the R&D phase and product qualification / classification, to (early) market access and vigilance / pharmacovigilance, covering all aspects relating to distribution and import-export, marketing and product information, and labelling of regulated products. She frequently liaises with Belgian and EU regulators and industry associations on behalf of industry players.

Alexander Wenzel

Alexander is a trusted advisor who excels in guiding technology clients through the intricate landscape of EU regulatory compliance. He seamlessly integrates expertise in Life Sciences regulatory and data privacy requirements. The scope of his product practice covers all life cycles of (in vitro) medical devices, (advanced therapeutic) medicinal products and digital products such as wellness apps. He advises clients on all regulatory aspects governing their product including classifications, clinical trials, GCP and GMP investigations, regulatory market exclusivities, marketing authorization applications and conformity assessment procedures. He also has extensive experience counseling organizations on data privacy matters. Alexander has assisted clients with setting up privacy compliance frameworks, addressing cybersecurity incidents, resolving investigations by competent authorities and with navigating sector specific requirements governing personal health data.

Carl’s practice focuses on corporate and financial law. He has nearly 30 years experience in advising Belgian and international corporate clients, and financial institutions in a broad range of both domestic and cross-border transactions. He works across a variety of sectors and is referred to in all major legal directories. Carl is an “advocaat” at the Brussels Bar and works in English, Dutch and French. Carl leads both the corporate & commercial and financial markets practices in Belgium.

Louis-Maël Cogis

Louis-Maël is head of the firm’s Luxembourg office. He acts for financial institutions and international investment banks in international banking and capital markets work. Louis-Maël specialises in and leads on a wide range of domestic and international finance transactions including secured and unsecured lending transactions, structured corporate finance matters, acquisition finance, property finance, bilateral loans, syndicated loans, real estate finance and debt restructuring. In addition to his role as head of Banking & Finance, Louis-Maël is recognised for his advisory work in respect of issues of debt securities, securitisation transactions, syndicated lending, leveraged acquisition finance, asset backed securitisations, repackaging’s repos and debt restructuring. He also advises banks and other professionals of the financial sectors on specific regulatory matters. Louis-Maël is also an expert in environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues and sustainable finance.

Augustin de Longeaux

Augustin advises domestic and international investment managers and financial institutions on legal and regulatory issues relating to the structuring, establishment, operation and distribution of all types of Luxembourg investment funds. Augustin leads the Luxembourg fund formation group. He brings together significant practical experience in advising clients who carry on business in Luxembourg or through Luxembourg vehicles, with industry knowledge and an understanding of applicable regulatory rules and regulatory requirements. He assists his clients in relation to the establishment of Luxembourg management companies, alternative investment fund managers and investment firms. He provides regulatory and compliance advice and representation in connection with CSSF proceedings. Augustin also advises institutional investors and family offices in relation to prospective investments in Luxembourg based funds. His practice has a particular focus on formation of regulated and unregulated real estate, private equity, infrastructure and debt funds.

Thierry plans, manages and executes mergers, acquisitions, company restructurings, asset purchases and joint venture projects for international clients. In addition, he directs all aspects of cross-jurisdictional real estate transactions. Thierry works with international companies on the establishment, expansion and operation of their businesses in or though Luxembourg. He advises clients on the complex legal issues that can arise on international transactions involving Luxembourg subsidiaries of foreign companies, including advising on a broad range of corporate reorganisations. His experience in corporate law includes M&A, private equity, joint venture projects, the setting up of Luxembourg corporate structures, corporate restructuring, corporate governance, remuneration plans, corporate finance and more general corporate and commercial advice. While being specialised in infrastructure, real estate and private equity deals, his clients are from various industry sectors such as financial institutions, asset management and investment funds, real estate and automotive industries. Furthermore, Thierry has a vast pool of experience in real estate law advising clients on the legal aspects of related transactions. Thierry is also an expert in environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues and sustainable finance.

Julie Carbiener

Julie focuses on direct and indirect tax aspects of real estate, private equity and debt transactions. Julie also deals with the structuring of Luxembourg regulated and unregulated investment funds. She also has significant experience in tax litigation and value added tax (VAT). Julie is a member of the International Fiscal Association (IFA), the VAT technical committee of the Association of the Luxembourg Fund Industry (ALFI) and the VAT group of the Luxembourg Bankers’ Association (ABBL). She also chairs the Task Force "VAT aspects of management fees relating to CDOs and CLOs" of the Luxembourg Capital Markets Association (LuxCMA).

Pieter is a partner in our Asset Management and Investment Funds group in Luxembourg. He assists fund managers in the structuring, formation and marketing of their alternative investment funds, in particular private equity, open- or closed ended real estate, infrastructure and credit funds. Pieter also regularly acts for institutional investors in assessing and negotiating their fund investments. Pieter has worked on several fund restructurings. He has represented fund managers in effecting fund mergers and obtaining investor approval. He has also represented limited partner groups and advisory boards in restructuring negotiations under more adversarial circumstances. Before moving to Luxembourg in 2014, Pieter practiced for ten years in Amsterdam and for five years in Tokyo. In Amsterdam Pieter represented private equity firms in their M&A transactions. He also enjoyed secondmentsto a real estate investment management boutique and to the legal department of a fiduciary investment manager. Pieter is an active member of the Luxembourg Private Equity Association and co-chairs their AML working group.

Cathrine Foldberg Møller

Cathrine is a partner and leads the Luxembourg regulatory practice. She has a broad range of experience advising clients on Luxembourg and European financial services regulation. She advises financial institutions, insurance companies, FinTechs including cryptoasset services providers and other professionals of the financial sector on their regulatory work. Her background as a transactional lawyer has helped her to gain a deeper understanding of clients’ products and services and the practical aspects of their business. Her experience covers financial services ranging from traditional banking, payment services, investment activities as well as product regulation and financial promotion. She is known to deliver pragmatic and practical advice tailored to the clients’ set-up and operations. Cathrine contributes to the Simmons & Simmons Navigator service and Crypto Reviewer and works extensively on cross-border licensing matters. She advises on market players’ continuing obligations and compliance with regulatory requirements in connection with MiFID, transparency, market abuse, EMIR, prospectus matters as well as ESG regulatory requirements. Due to the nature of her work she is in regular contact with the local regulators and monitors closely any market and legal developments, helping clients anticipate and navigate regulatory change. She is fluent in five languages and serves clients on an ongoing basis in all of them. She is involved in teaching and often publishes on technical subjects in legal journals. Cathrine is also involved in ESG matters and is a member of the board of the Luxembourg Capital Markets Association.

Annemarie Elenbaas

Annemarie has gained experience in all major areas of employment law including advising employment issues in relation to sales forces and agency workers. She has particular expertise in advising on corporate related matters including advising on employment law issues that relate to the mergers and acquisition practice (e.g. employees’ representation and consultation, transfer of undertaking, applicability of collective labour agreements, harmonisation of benefits, position managing directors, compliance aspects etc. and data protection (privacy) matters). Annemarie litigates frequently on behalf of clients, in employment courts as well as appellate courts. Her litigation work includes staff terminations as well as applying for interlocutory relief and injunction orders.

Koen van Leeuwen

Koen works in the financial markets group and is based in our Amsterdam office. He specialises in financial markets regulation and has particular experience in relation to asset management, other investment services and crypto services. He also has experience advising on derivatives regulation and documentation. Since joining Simmons & Simmons in 2019, Koen has advised leading global financial institutions on a broad range of financial services regulations. He is also experienced in application procedures with the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) and the Dutch Central Bank (DNB). Furthermore, he regularly negotiates documentation for derivatives, lately in particular with respect to the initial margin requirements.

Leo specialises in corporate law with an emphasis on private equity, cross-border mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and corporate governance. He heads the practice group Company & Commercial and the private equity group in the Netherlands. His client base includes European and US private equity firms, banks, and international and domestic corporations among others active in consumer goods, the manufacturing industry, food and packaging. Leo has developed a consistent and impressive track-record in assisting private equity firms and management teams in buy-outs.

Paul Tjiam is a litigation partner in the Amsterdam Office of Simmons & Simmons. His practice focuses on national and international complex civil litigation related to (geopolitical) commercial disputes, antitrust, general tort claims, liability of financial institutions, defamation, seizures and IP. Paul has worked on high profile international litigation matters, including an ownership dispute of the Stolichnaya brand against the Russian State, representing fintech companies in financial liability claims, representing a global beverages brand with the dismantlement of an international operating counterfeit syndicate and a commercial ownership dispute against the Turkish State following the alleged coup d’état. Paul also assists a natural person who is the victim of a slander campaign initiated by two Dutch top500 companies and their owner. Paul devotes a significant portion of his practice to pro bono service, representing UNICEF Nederland, Doctors without Borders and PILP in legal matters.

Machteld Hiemstra

Machteld is a civil liability and regulatory law specialist with a specific focus on highly regulated sectors or products and services, in particular the Life Sciences sector. She is a litigator and advises clients in civil and administrative courts from first instance up to the supreme court or before the European courts. Typically, companies call her for assistance on issues in relation to judicial review, enforcement actions, market access, product liability and commercial conflicts. Her expertise also includes highly significant legal areas, including GDPR and the AI Act. Machteld furthermore has a wealth of experience in handling SPC litigation (Patent Supplementary protection Certificates) which is a niche legal expertise in the cross-over of patent law and medical regulatory law. Due to the nature of the clients, cases very often require technical affinity and deep understanding not just of the law, but especially also of the product or services at stake. Her sector knowledge is deep and practical and includes industry experience having been a global inhouse counsel at Akzo Nobel for several years and fulfilling several interim positions as well. In recent years she advised and represented clients in cases with regard to data protection and trade secrets, open government, GDPR, consumer protection, pharmaceutical and medical devices legislation advertising and promotion, product pricing and reimbursement, pharma and medical devices tender disputes, market access, authorisation and withdrawal proceedings and product liability cases. Machteld speaks, teaches and writes regularly on topics relevant to her fields of expertise.

Bas Berghuis van Woortman

Bas is advocaat and the national head of the IP practice in The Netherlands. For more than 25 years, Bas’ practice covers the full range of intellectual property activities with a focus on patent and technology based litigation. Bas and his team have a particular expertise in the life sciences sector, handling matters regarding medical devices, pharmaceuticals and biotech, and in the TMT sector, acting in matters regarding electronics, telecoms and software. Described by clients as "business-oriented, responsive and proactive", Bas acts before national and international courts, as well as the Dutch and European Patent Offices. As advocaat he has been involved in all aspects of litigation, as well as other IP related issues such as licensing, prosecution strategy, negotiation of research and development agreements and the protection of trade secrets and know-how. Bas is Advisory Board Member of EPLAW, the European Patent Lawyer’s Association. Bas is a registered representative before the Unified Patent Court (UPC), which became operational on 1 June 2023.

Monique van Herksen

Monique is a partner specialising in transfer pricing, dispute resolution and related international tax issues. Her practice includes advising multinational enterprises on global audit compliance, audit management and risk assessment related to transfer pricing, permanent establishment exposure and business restructurings in the jurisdictions where they do business. Monique handles audit settlements, advance pricing agreements and competent authority requests. She provides hands-on assistance and strategic advice on tax and transfer pricing audits and discussions with tax authorities and local tax counsel, where she is able to call on her experience with leading controversy teams and working for the US Internal Revenue Service. Monique also serves as transfer pricing expert on the Subcommittee on Transfer Pricing of the UN Tax Committee and assists the United Nations’ Financing for Development Office with training and materials for tax authorities in developing countries. She has conducted trainings for organisations such as the Inter-American Centre of Tax administrations (CIAT) and the African Tax Authorities Forum (ATAF). She also has been teaching transfer pricing at leading universities for over 20 years.

Siemkje Batenburg

Siemkje Batenburg is a real estate notary; her practice consists of working on all aspects of commercial real estate and real estate-related transactions. Siemkje advises a wide variety of clients on (commercial) real estate transactions, (re-) financing and real estate development; she also advises on divisions into apartment rights, the establishment of leasehold constructions and any other possible ownership rights in relation to (the legal structuring of) existing properties, (unbuilt) plots of land and solar/wind farms. Siemkje acts for investment funds, private equity funds, institutional investors, banks and debt-funds, who are active/investing in (the (re-)financing) of various real estate asset classes (mainly retail, business, residential, leisure, logistics and energy).

David Shearer is a corporate partner in the Netherlands and a member of our energy, natural resources and infrastructure group. He advises on a wide range of corporate matters, with a particular focus on cross-border M&A, joint ventures and project development and financing. David has significant experience in a number of sectors, including oil & gas, renewable and conventional power, natural resources and infrastructure. He has acted for a range of corporate clients, oil & gas majors, power developers, trading companies and financial investors. David is a member of the Association of International Energy Negotiators (AIEN) and the AIEN Hydrogen Taskforce.

Peter is a partner in the Financial Markets group based in the Amsterdam office. Peter is a US-qualified international capital markets lawyer who specialises in advising investment banking, governmental and corporate clients on multi-jurisdictional debt and equity transactions pursuant to Rule 144A and Regulation S under the US Securities Act. His specific experience includes advising on medium-term note, commercial paper and structured finance programmes, bond issues, liability management transactions and equity-related issues. Peter is further an expert in ESG finance, acting for the leading issuers of green, social, sustainability and sustainability-linked bonds across the Dutch market. Peter's client base includes several of the most significant issuers and underwriters active in the Dutch and international capital markets. He has been recognised in various legal guides, including Chambers Global, The Legal 500 and the IFLR1000, as a leading capital markets practitioner. Peter is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Surdna Foundation, a major New York-based philanthropic foundation that seeks to foster sustainable communities in the United States - communities guided by principles of social justice and distinguished by healthy environments, strong local economies, and thriving cultures.

Vincent is a managing associate in the Amsterdam Financial Markets group. He specialises in asset-backed finance transactions and transactional banking and advises a broad range of (international) corporations and financial institutions, such as issuers, arrangers, agents, lenders and borrowers on both public and private transactions, including structured notes, covered bonds, securitisations, warehouse financing arrangements and lending platforms as well as acquisition finance, real estate finance and loan portfolio sales.

Jeroen specialises in capital market transactions with a focus on asset-backed transactions such as securitisations, covered bonds and supply chain financing. He represents financial institutions in their capacity as originator, lender, investor, sponsor, arranger or dealer. He has also been involved in numerous loan portfolio sales, acting for both sellers and buyers.

Luc is a real estate specialist with a focus on real estate transactions, lease and asset management. Luc is advising sellers and purchasers of real estate, acting for a variety of clients, ranging from investment funds, corporates and retail companies. His work includes both contentious and non-contentious matters. Luc is also a construction specialist. His wide experience in the construction and engineering sectors allows him to bring a commercial and pragmatic approach to contract procurement, project support and dispute resolution, whether by litigation or by arbitration. Finally, Luc is known as a specialist in procurement, with a special focus on the Life Sciences sector, representing pharmaceutical companies in their aim to win mandates.

Rezah is a partner specialising in financial services regulation, derivatives and clearing. On the financial regulatory side, he covers a wide range of regulatory issues, including cross-border operations in the Netherlands, acquisitions of interests in financial firms, but also negotiations of investment management agreements. His recent work focussed on Brexit relocations and repapering. On the derivatives and clearing side, he covers trade documentation (ISDA/GMRA/GMSLA/EFET MNA etc.), regulatory aspects (such as EMIR, MiFID and CSDR) and legal opinions under CRD. He currently advises clients on initial margin documentation. His experience includes advising asset managers, pension schemes, banks, fund managers and other financial institutions, as well as the Dutch government and regulators. He has a background at the Dutch Central Bank, where he was involved in the creation of the Dutch Financial Supervision Act.

Oscar is a partner in the IP practice in the Netherlands. He has over 15 years experience and specialises in international patent and trade secret litigation, tech licensing and other technology-related matters. Having a background in engineering, Oscar is well placed to represent a wide variety of multinational clients active in telecom, electronics, biotechnology and the pharmaceutical industry. His cases are mostly cross-jurisdictional and he often works on the convergence of different areas of law, such as patent law and competition law. Oscar regularly publishes on patent law topics, such as the Unified Patent Court and the Unitary Patent, and frequently speaks at national and international congresses. He is also a member of EPLAW, the European Patent Lawyer’s Association.

Ivo is a partner in our banking and finance practice in Amsterdam. His wide-ranging experience covers, amongst others, matters from general corporate financings to leveraged buy outs and real estate financing transactions. He has a particular focus on syndicated lending, multi-jurisdictional (secured) financing arrangements, real estate finance, warehouse financings and loan portfolio transactions. Ivo regularly advises sponsors, corporate borrowers, financial institutions and strategic investors in connection with financing transactions across the credit spectrum.

Iris specialises in transactional, advisory and regulatory work in the asset management and investment fund sector. Her clients include (international) fund managers operating under the AIFMD and UCITS regime and institutional investors. She has an extensive background in (Dutch) corporate law, contract law and financial market regulations. In her daily practice she combines this knowledge with her practical expertise and experience to advise fund managers and investors on the full range of investment funds and asset management matters. Iris has solid experience in advising clients on the structure of investments, fund formation, the marketing of funds, as well as license application processes and topics related thereto in various jurisdictions.

Johan has over 30 years of experience in life science, and is a partner in our Intellectual Property practice. Since his industry start in the late eighties he has been continuously involved in international patent litigation in various courts. From small molecules to PCR, from proteins (hormones, cytokines, antibodies) to medical devices Johan has litigated (and coordinated) in e.g. the Netherlands, Japan, UK, Sweden, USA , Australia and at various patent offices. Johan is also experienced in the commercial and strategic aspects of life science. He has guided companies from inception to IPO and beyond, negotiating licensing and collaboration deals, securing investments and implementing aligned R&D, business and IP strategies. His latest assignments were an IPR for a gene therapy client, a Dutch and Belgian high visibility lawsuit on a cancer drug, a licensing deal between two pharmaceutical companies and implementing an R&D/IP strategy for a company developing a treatment for infectious diseases of the airways.

Pim provides pragmatic corporate tax advice to asset managers, investment funds and corporates. He is specialising in fund structuring, acquisitions and disposals of investments and related corporate matters including management participations and restructurings. Pim is a managing associate based in our Amsterdam office. In 2022 he completed a secondment to a Dutch independent private market fund manager where he worked on a wide variety of matters including fund raising, acquisitions and disposals, asset management and co-investment structures.

Edwin van der Velde

Edwin van der Velde is a litigation associate in the Amsterdam office of Simmons & Simmons LLP. He represents clients in national and international disputes and specialises in complex civil litigation. His fields of expertise include commercial disputes, financial liability, general tort claims, defamation, seizures, intellectual property, parallel trade and unfair commercial practices. Edwin also represents a natural person who is the victim of a slander campaign initiated by two Dutch top500 companies and their owner.

Marline is a supervising associate in the Financial Markets team in Amsterdam. She specialises in banking and capital markets work, including asset-backed finance. She advises a broad range of corporations and financial institutions on cross border (re)financing transactions.

Emrecan Karacaoglu

Emrecan is a supervising associate in the Financial Markets team in Amsterdam. He advises a broad range of (inter)national corporations and financial institutions on cross-border banking and securities transactions, relating to amongst others, debt financing, real estate finance, project finance, acquisition finance and structured loans. Emrecan also has experience working on capital markets transactions and advises public and private parties that are dealing with insolvency.

Harmen has extensive experience counseling fund managers (including AIFMD/EUVECA/UCITSD), investment firms, pension funds and other financial institutions. He provides clients with integrated legal and financial regulatory advice regarding fund formation and restructuring, fund M&A, investment joint ventures, license applications, investment services and delegation arrangements. He also has expertise in the areas of operational management and governance of regulated undertakings, asset segregation (including depositary and custody arrangements), pension fund outsourcing and the cross-border marketing of financial markets products and services.

Laurie Kuijpers

Laurie is a partner in employment, incentives and pensions practice and has more than 10 years of experience in employment and employee benefit matters, with a specialisation and strong focus on Dutch and European pension law. She represents pension funds, insurance companies and large national and international companies on pension related issues. Laurie’s ample experience includes, amongst others, involvement of (international) harmonisation and de-risking of pension schemes, liquidation and consolation of pension funds, duty of care issues, M&A transactions, the technical and financial aspects of the complex implementation contracts and mandatory participation in mandatory industry-wide pension funds. She also regularly advises and litigates on high-profile and contentious pension disputes. Furthermore, Laurie has significant experience in representing clients in consultation and negotiation procedures with works councils and unions, dismissal of managing directors and remuneration structures and sector-specific regulations on remuneration in the financial sector. She is a frequent speaker at seminars and courses on pension law aspects and regularly publishes articles on employment- and pension law matters in professional journals. Laurie is a member of the association for pension lawyers, IPEBLA and ViiP, a professional network for women in financial (pension) institutions and registered as a certified pension lawyer (CPL).

Andrada joined Simmons & Simmons in 2010 and specialises in commercial law and project development. She is a specialist in the field of contract law focusing on commercial contracts, including contracts regarding the provision of goods and services, CAPEX and OPEX contracts, distribution- and agency contracts as well as general terms and conditions. She assists and represents clients during the whole “life-cycle” of a commercial contract, starting from contract negotiations, drafting (complex and bespoke) contracts and advising in respect of contract law issues such as pre-contractual liability, the interpretation of a contract and termination. She also represents clients in court litigation in the event of a commercial dispute. In addition, Andrada has extensive experience in the (re)development and realization of complex large-scale projects. This includes industrial production facilities, infrastructure, renewables and office space. Andrada regularly publishes on contract law topics, amongst others as a contributor to Rechtspraak Contractenrecht (a leading Dutch legal journal on commercial contracting) and as an author of the SDU Comments to the Dutch Civil Code articles 7:9 – 7:19a (legal duties and obligations of the seller) and articles 7:20 – 7:25 (particular effects of a non-performance by the seller).

Daisy Termeulen

Daisy is a supervising associate in our Dispute Resolution team, based in our Amsterdam office. Daisy specialises in intellectual property law. She practices all areas of intellectual property law with a particular focus on patent litigation. In addition, she practices in civil commercial disputes and regulatory enforcement disputes. Daisy represented various clients in the TMT sector. Daisy’s experience also covers litigation and regulatory disputes in the life sciences sector, acting in matters regarding medical devices, pharmaceuticals and biotech. She is a member of Vereniging De Jonge Balie in Amsterdam (the Dutch young bar association) and AIPPI (International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property). In addition, she is part of the editorial board of the EPLaw Patent Blog for The Netherlands.

Rosa Temminghoff

Rosa is an associate in the financial markets group and is based in our Amsterdam office. She specialises in asset-backed finance transactions and (debt) capital markets transactions including medium-term note, commercial paper and structured finance programmes. Rosa advises a broad range of (multinational) corporations and financial institutions on both domestic and cross-border transactions and associated regulatory matters.

Bob van Els is a Supervising Associate who is based in our Amsterdam office. He works in our corporate department and specialises in mergers and acquisition, including corporate real estate, energy and natural resources related transactions, private equity transactions, corporate restructurings and joint ventures. He has assisted a variety of corporate clients, investment funds and private equity firms in several transactions.

George Driessen

George is a partner in our Dispute Resolution group in Amsterdam. He and his team represent clients in various industry sectors at all stages of domestic and international arbitration and litigation, including ICC, NAI, NCC, ECHR and the Enterprise Chamber of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal. George has a wide experience advising on commercial disputes arising out of a variety of agreements, including joint venture, shareholder, post-M&A, licensing, distribution, technology transfer and construction agreements. Additionally, he counsels on sensitive matters of corporate governance. Such matters involve disputes about contractual and statutory obligations of shareholders and board members, including inquiry proceedings on (mis)management, corporate control and distressed intracompany relations. George regularly publishes in legal journals. He is co-author of a leading handbook on civil litigation and attachment and responsible for the Dutch Chapter for Thomson Reuters Practical Law on the topics 'Attachment Order', 'Rules of Evidence' and 'Settlement of Disputes'.

Elise specialises in corporate law, focusing on mergers & acquisitions (M&A), private equity and other corporate transactions. Elise is a supervising associate in the firm’s corporate and commercial group in Amsterdam. She focuses on corporate law and is particularly skilled at advising private equity sponsors and private equity owned portfolio companies on M&A. She has a background in all aspects of corporate and civil law. With experience in the private equity sector, clients Elise has worked with include Gilde Equity Management (one of Benelux’s major private equity houses). Working with such clients has given Elise a strong overview of the market, making her a crucial member of the team in Amsterdam. This makes her able to think about more than just the immediate legal issues at stake, meaning she can act in the best interest of the client and provide the most effective legal solutions.

Bart Koolhaas has provided clients with advice on matters relating to power and utilities, transmission and distribution, carbon capture and storage, oil & gas (up, mid and downstream and LNG) and climate change. Over the last ten years Bart Koolhaas has built a practice focusing on renewable energy, with a specific focus on solar projects and (off shore) wind. He has worked on more than 25 solar projects among which the biggest solar projects in the Netherlands and the first floating solar project. He has advised on three offshore wind projects. Bart is a member of the Netherlands Association of Public Law, the Netherlands Environmental Lawyers Association (VMA) and the Dutch Energy Law Association (NeVER).

David Schreuders

David is a specialist in financial and economic criminal law and is a highly experienced defence counsel in corporate crime litigation matters. Apart from being an excellent litigator, he is a strong advocate for the preparedness of companies and advises boards on compliance issues, designs or upgrades corporate compliance programs and conducts internal investigations for proactive remediation. He has a very broad experience in white collar crime, in a wide range of fraud matters (including complex accounting, banking, securities, environmental and tax), as well as in compliance and regulatory issues for companies, board members or higher level management. He and his team are also experienced in advising on company policies including Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) due diligence, cybersecurity and cybercrime resilience, anti-corruption, anti-money laundering, safety & health and trade sanctions. David’s practice has a strong international focus and is marked by multi-disciplinary aspects of law. David is a partner in Amsterdam and works closely with other specialists of Simmons & Simmons internationally. He has built up a large international network of specialist peers over the years, which enables him to offer the client an optimum of knowledge and high level experience if there is also an extended scope outside his practice. David has over 30 years’ experience in high profile litigation matters. He has been a partner since 1998 in leading domestic (boutique) and international law firms. David has a long list of publications to his name and is co-author of the Dutch Defence Counsel Handbook (on Tax Fraud) and of the book Financial Law Compliance (on money laundering and crypto currencies). Furthermore, David regularly lectures about Corporate Compliance, Financial Crime and Cybercrime related topics.

Raza leads a team that advises businesses that are rich in Data, Tech, and IP and often subject to complex regulation. He leads our Middle East sector initiatives concerning TMT, FinTech, and Healthcare and Life Sciences, and is a trusted advisor to many of the biggest names in these industries. Raza has particular expertise around the legal, regulatory, and policy impact of emerging tech and sector convergence through “first of their kind” projects. His core practice includes advising on complex commercial arrangements, data rights and obligations (as a Certified Information Privacy Professional), sector-specific regulation, competition laws, and the commercialisation of intangible assets. As our Middle East TMT lead, Raza has advised numerous Telcos (including China Telecom, du, Etisalat, MTN, OneWeb, Ooredoo, Safaricom, VEON) on projects concerning networks and services. He is also immersed in the FinTech space advising Financial Institutions (including American Express, BlackRock, First Abu Dhabi Bank, HSBC, Morgan Stanley, Qatar Islamic Bank, UAE Banks Federation) on a host of innovative projects, particularly in the payments sub-sector. Another area of deep focus for Raza is advising pharma, medical device, and healthcare businesses (including Astellas, Bayer, Becton Dickinson, Celgene, GSK, Houston Methodist, Wright Medical). Raza often brings together his TMT and Healthcare sector understanding to work on digital health projects across the Middle East and Africa. Raza’s deep industry knowledge has been enhanced through senior-level client secondments (including into GSK as acting regional general counsel and into the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company’s R&D programme as lead counsel). Raza is a member of the firm's Accelerate Digital group, focused on guiding clients through digital transformation.

James is a partner based in our Dubai office and is the Head of the firm’s Corporate and Commercial Practice Group in the Middle East. He specialises in private mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, corporate reorganisations, investment fund establishment and related financial regulation. His clients include private equity funds, investment managers, sovereign wealth funds, corporates, financial institutions and state-owned enterprises. James has been based in the MENA region for over twelve years. He is fluent in English and German.

Payam is a partner in the Middle East, specialised in complex disputes, with a focus on the financial services sector, contentious regulatory matters and investigations. He represents clients before the Courts of England and Wales, the DIFC Courts, the ADGM Courts, regulatory bodies as well as in arbitrations. In addition, Payam sits as an arbitrator and advises clients on anti-bribery and corruption matters, cyber-crime, data protection and privacy laws.

Lee is a partner in the Financial Markets group in our Dubai office. He has extensive experience in advising financial institutions and public and private companies on all aspects of conventional and Islamic debt capital markets, equity capital markets and liability management.

Muneer is the firm’s Middle East Regional Head. He also heads the firm’s award-winning Middle East financial markets and financial services regulatory practices, in addition to our international Islamic finance practice. He specialises in financial services regulatory matters and advises both regional and international financial institutions and asset management groups on a wide range of regulatory, investigatory, and transactional matters. In particular, he guides clients on how to navigate complex cross-border regulatory issues relating to the provision of financial services, including structuring and licensing issues, across the Middle East. Muneer has significant experience and recognised expertise in structuring a wide range of complex and innovative funds, financial products, platforms, and services, including in the areas of FinTech and digital assets. He has also advised a number of governments and national regulators on major regulatory reform initiatives. Muneer is a member of the firm's Accelerate Digital group, focused on guiding clients through digital transformation.

Adam Wolstenholme

Adam specialises in advising clients on complex international, cross-border and sensitive areas of law, with a particular emphasis on financial services regulatory matters. His expertise spans both TradFi and DeFi, and he acts in both non-contentious and contentious instructions. He has gained a strong background in the local and regional framework and practicalities that are vital to understanding the international and domestic sensitivities in the Middle East. He provides current and pragmatic advice on the region's nascent regulations. His client base includes a number of the largest international financial institutions, global asset managers and hedge funds, virtual asset service providers, brokerage entities and payment providers. Consequently, he has extensive experience in liaising with the region's financial regulators and securities exchanges, including on advising on regulations issued by the UAE Central Bank, the UAE Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA), the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA), Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA), the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority/Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) and the Saudi Capital Markets Authority (Saudi CMA). Adam possesses particular experience advising on crypto regulatory frameworks across the GCC, and has advised some of the world's largest crypto market participants. Striving to stay at the forefront of the constantly emerging digital assets industry, he is trusted to advise on the set up of crypto exchanges, clearing houses, custodians, broker-dealers, managers and funds, as well as a broad range of crypto-related products, including cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, utility tokens, NFTs, crypto derivatives and SAFTs. Prior to working in the Middle East, he was a barrister in London where his practice entailed both defence and prosecution work, with a special emphasis on financial crime and regulatory matters, including advisory and representation instructions on the proceeds of crime, money laundering, bribery and extradition. During his work at the self-employed bar, he was also seconded to the Financial Conduct Authority in London, whereby he was able to amass practical experience of complex regulatory investigations.

David leads the firm’s Middle East employment practice and has been based in Dubai for a decade. David advises on all aspects of the employment relationship and he is an expert in managing employee risk with a particular focus on the United Arab Emirates and Qatar markets. He has a deep background in employment disputes, workplace investigations and disciplinary matters and he regularly guides clients through these complex and sensitive situations. However, David also has considerable experience with advising clients on non-contentious work such as employment contract and handbook/policy drafting, executive level appointments and terminations.

Owen advises clients on complex contracts, transactions and projects in the technology, digital and data space. Owen has specialist expertise navigating cross-border data matters involving emerging data privacy, cybersecurity and cloud computing regulations, and he has successfully led several market-leading organisations in regulated sectors with strategic compliance projects in this domain. He is also a regular author and contributor on data privacy matters for renowned publications such as DataGuidance and Thomson Reuters.

Vishal is a supervising associate in the Digital Business team at Simmons & Simmons in London. He advises clients across a range of sectors with a focus on Technology, Media and Telecoms. He has a range of experience on outsourcing and services contracts, e-commerce and consumer law, technology regulatory and data protection matters. Vishal also co-leads the firm’s Gaming and Immersive Technology (GAIT) group which focuses on the Metaverse and video gaming. Since joining Simmons & Simmons in 2017, he has completed client secondments to Monzo Bank and WeWork.

Juan Sosa Pons-Sorolla

Juan heads the firm's Tax practice in Spain, advising on all areas of corporate and personal tax. He has broad experience in international tax planning, M&A and property taxation, with specific focus over the past few years on cross-border distressed debt and real estate transactions. He also has extensive experience in tax and regulatory matters relating to financial services, with particular focus on collective investment schemes and hedge funds, as well as capital markets taxation. In addition, he regularly advises asset managers on tax litigation matters.

Eduardo Peñacoba

Eduardo is the Country Head in Spain as well as heading up the Employment practice of Simmons & Simmons in Spain, advising on both contentious and non-contentious employment issues. He specialises in advising on cross-border transactions, including issues raised in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures and integrations, as well as major international projects, such as restructurings and outsourcing. This includes collective employment issues such as collective bargaining, works council elections, the structure and organisation of European works councils and negotiations linked to reductions in the work force and collective transfers. Eduardo advises a wide range of clients from start-up companies to multinational corporations across all of the firm’s core sectors (Financial Institutions, Asset Management and Investment Funds, TMT and with special focus in, Life Sciences and the pharmaceutical industry). Eduardo provides expert employment advice to domestic and international clients in all sectors. He advises on all matters within the Employment Law arena, including negotiations, judicial proceedings at every level of the Spanish courts, executive appointments and exits, employee benefits, pension and remuneration schemes, collective bargaining and company agreements, corporate restructuring processes, among others. He offers innovative solutions to the multiple labour situations his clients face when conducting business. His involvement has been key to major companies on the Iberian Peninsula and he has participated in some of the most strategic, complex and high-profile cases involving large company restructurings and employment court proceedings. He is a leading practitioner included in the most renowned legal directories. Particularly, he offers experience in the labour aspects of corporate restructuring and M&A, with notable expertise in the life sciences sector. He also advises on contentious claims relating to dismissals. Eduardo Peñacoba is a recurrent lecturer in leading business schools, and usually participates as a lecturer and teacher in different courses and conferences about Employment Law.

Alfredo de Lorenzo

Alfredo specialises in capital markets, structured products, derivatives and distressed debt (acquisitions and disposals of secured and unsecured NPL portfolios). Alfredo is the Head of the Financial Markets practice in Spain. He advises investment banks, commercial banks and corporates on a variety of large transactions, such as debt issues, MTN and ECP Programmes, repackagings, securitisations and other complex structure finance transactions. He is a recognised practitioner, with extensive expertise in advising issuers/arrangers and institutional investors on a wide range of financings. He also advises hedge funds on the acquisition and disposal of secured and unsecured NPL portfolios. His knowledge of the Spanish market and understanding of its clients business allow him to create strategic legal solutions to its clients. Alfredo is dual qualified, he was admitted as a lawyer in Spain in 1997 and as a solicitor to the Supreme Court of England and Wales in 1998. This dual qualification gives him a competitive strength in the market through his rare capability in offering advice to the firm’s clients with interests in Spain, the UK and the US.

Andrés Mochales

Andrés has more than 30 years of experience as a litigator, with expertise in all type of proceedings (including financial, civil, arbitration and bankruptcy). Andrés has a deep understanding of the Financial Institutions sector and his core area of specialisation is representing these entities in financial litigation procedures or defending their interest in major insolvency proceedings happening in Spain. He also acts as an arbitrator and as a lawyer before the most prestigious Courts of Arbitration in Spain. He currently teaches commercial contracts in the LLM of the Instituto de Empresa, a leading business school in Madrid. He is also a professor in the IE Advanced Course of Insolvency Law, as well as member of the Academic Organization Committee of the yearly National Insolvency Congress organized by Instituto de Empresa -addressed to judges, professors, lawyers and experts in bankruptcy.

Carmen is a partner at Simmons & Simmons’ employment practice in Spain, advising on both contentious and non-contentious employment issues. She specialises in workforce restructuring and collective negotiations, high-level management conflicts and restructuring. Carmen is generally involved in complex litigation matters and advises international companies in compliance matters as well as in key strategic issues (ie - illegal lender of employees, TUPE transfers, etc.).

Ignacio Domínguez

Ignacio is a partner in the Corporate and Commercial practice of our Madrid office, with extensive experience in all aspects of commercial law. He has a particular focus on M&A and private equity matters. He regularly plans, manages and executes mergers, acquisitions, company restructurings, corporate governance, asset purchases and joint venture projects for international and domestic clients. He also has experience advising special opportunity funds and companies in restructuring & insolvency matters in Spain. His area of expertise encompasses a wide number of sectors, including energy, corporate services, media, health care, infrastructure and sports. Ignacio is a pioneer in the development of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues within the M&A/PE industry in Spain.

Francisco de León

Francisco is a partner in the Corporate and Commercial practice of our Madrid office, with extensive experience in M&A and general company law matters. In particular, Francisco has vast knowledge of M&A transactions in the insurance, financial services, collective investment, securitisation funds and pension funds management sectors, having participated, throughout his 25 years of experience, in numerous transactions of acquisition and sale of insurance companies, insurance portfolios and other regulated financial entities, with a particular focus on bancassurance alliances between Spanish credit institutions and foreign and Spanish insurance groups. He has also participated in complex reinsurance operations of great economic significance, such as reinsurance of large life risk insurance portfolios for the monetization of their value (VIF monetization reinsurance). Francisco also regularly advises various entities in the insurance and financial sectors on matters relating to insurance regulation (in particular Solvency II, insurance distribution EU and national rules and insurance contract law), pension plans and pension funds, right of establishment and freedom of services regime for insurance companies and intermediaries, financial services customer protection and the mortgage market. Throughout his career he has published several articles in specialized journals and participated in collective works on insurance supervision regulations, distribution, pension plans and funds and general commercial law.

Olivia Delagrange

Olivia is a partner in the Kennedys Law Madrid office and is qualified in three jurisdictions: Spain (2006), Belgium (2004) and England and Wales (2015). She is a specialist in Marine, Product Liability, Construction, Property, Aviation and Energy and her client base includes insurers and reinsurers writing risks in Spain. Olivia regularly defends insurers and reinsurers and advises on coverage and policy wording. She has an extensive background in transportation law, including marine, road and aviation. She is often appointed for international insurance cases, which with her triple qualification and her ability to work in four languages, is no doubt an added value for (re)insurers. She also has specialist expertise relating to financial lines (D&O, BBB, infidelity).

Alejandro Guerrero

Alejandro is a partner and co-head of our EU Competition Law and Tech Regulation practice based in Brussels and in Madrid. He currently specialises in antitrust and commercial regulation, compliance and investigations, as well as in related disputes and litigation, in a variety of sectors including TMT, energy, consumer products and e-commerce. Specifically, Alejandro advises clients on the interplay between competition law and the GDPR, cybersecurity, and other related aspects of EU tech and platform regulations. Throughout his career, he has had first-hand and material involvement in important competition matters in the TMT sector, including two of the four Google EU investigations since 2010, and two four-to-three mergers in the telecoms sector (WIND/Hutchison/JV and Telefónica Deutschland/E-Plus). He has developed his expertise on competition and data privacy law and policy, being CIPP/E certified under the IAPP and having advised and represented international corporations on numerous on EU privacy and data protection compliance matters, both at national level and from a U.S.-EU standpoint. Today, he also advises clients on the impact on their business of future EU regulation, such as the AI Act, the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act. Alejandro originally trained at the energy merger unit of the European Commission. He has represented and acted for clients in numerous mergers across a variety of sectors. Over the years, he has also represented and advised clients in numerous antitrust and cartel investigations, including successfully applying for immunity and leniency for a major financial institution in numerous EU cartel investigations, successfully defending a financial institution from formal allegations made by the European Commission in the CDS Information Market case, successfully defending a toy manufacturer against an EU inspection, and successfully defending cosmetics and pharmaceutical companies against investigations and fining decisions from European authorities. Alejandro also advises companies on ESG regulation and on the interplay between these rules and competition law and investigations. He follows closely the enactment and application of bills and laws such as the CSRD, the CS3D and the ESG Rating Regulation, counselling clients on the adoption of compliance measures and reporting and due diligence requirements.

Emma Morales is a distinguished partner in the Dispute Resolution group at our Madrid office, bringing over two decades of expertise to her role. Specializing in complex disputes, Emma represents financial institutions, hedge and litigation funds, and publicly traded companies in both domestic and international contexts. Her practice focuses on contract and corporate law disputes, including breach of contract, directors' liability, and indemnities, as well as competition law, banking litigation, construction, and energy matters. Emma's extensive experience encompasses a wide range of litigation and arbitration scenarios. She is proficient in handling cases before various domestic (CAM, CIMA, CEA) and international arbitration forums (ICSID, ICC, LCIA), and she has a strong track record in court trials and appeals, including civil, commercial, and criminal courts. Notably, Emma is an expert in extraordinary appeals of cassation and for breach of process before the Spanish Supreme Court. In addition to her legal practice, Emma has been appointed as an arbitrator in several disputes, underscoring her recognition and trust within the legal community. She is also a dedicated educator, lecturing on advocacy at IE Law School and on arbitration practices at ISDE. Emma has contributed to the legal field through numerous articles and collaborations with prestigious publications such as Wolters Kluwer, Leaders League, and El Economista. Her contributions to the legal profession have not gone unnoticed, as evidenced by her recognition by Chambers & Partners, Legal 500, Leaders League, and Best Lawyers. Emma is actively involved in the legal community, serving as a member of the CIAM CIAR Corporate Arbitration Working Group, Co-Head of the Arbitration Commission of Woman in a Legal World, and has participated in the first CIAM CIAR Advance Practice Course for Aribtrators.