At Simmons & Simmons, ‘the advice has been outstanding’, according to clients. The firm has a deep bench of experienced lawyers, who cover the entire waterfront of structured finance, from complex structured products to simple derivatives hedging. Its clients include big players on both the buy side and the sell side. Craig Bisson is head of derivatives and trading, while Michael Lorraine leads the structured finance and derivatives group. Bisson focuses on financial services law and regulation, with a focus on investments. Market stalwart Paul Browne recently advised UBS on a first-of-a-kind carbon finance transaction. Synthetic securitisation expert Matthew Monahan acted for PGGM in a risk-sharing transaction referencing a portfolio of up to PLN 7bn of corporate loans. Monahan is a key adviser to global investment banks on repackaging trades, as is the ’practical and technically excellent’ Eucharia Bragg. The ‘highly efficient and always available’ Oliver West, and the ’enormously helpful’ Marcin Perzanowski also play pivotal roles in the practice. Joseph Wren has recently joined the firm.
Legal 500 Editorial commentary
Phone
+44 20 7825 3946
Email
Profile
Social

Profile

Work Department
Structured Finance and Derivatives
Position

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).

Career

Paul trained and qualified with Simmons & Simmons in 1994. Paul worked in London until 2000, before relocating to Asia where he spent 14 years, based in Hong Kong and Japan, and headed up the Financial Markets practice in APAC. Paul returned to the UK in 2014.

Education

Oxford University (Worcester College)

Content supplied by Simmons & Simmons

Testimonials

Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.

  • ‘A collaborative team, easy to work with and with good subject matter expertise. Generally very responsive and with good engagement. Works well with the internal legal team, with constructive challenge on both sides and a lack of big egos (which is refreshing).’

  • ‘Good corporate knowledge, real sense of "one team" within Simmons, no hogging of files, advice sought from, and referral to other partners, as a matter requires. Joined up and coordinated advice, great depth of knowledge and real emphasis on the client relationship across the piece. Takes the time to read in on matters and brief other partners on matters.’

  • ‘The Simmons team has good technical expertise and are efficient and great to work with.’

  • ‘Eucharia Bragg is practical and technically excellent. She ensures transactions are handled well by her team and we see Simmons as a reliable, good partner on our transactions.’

  • ‘Oliver West: he has an excellent knowledge of both law and industry. He is highly efficient and always available.’

  • ‘Marcin Perzanowski is excellent. He is very technical, yet he is also practical. He gets off the fence and is prepared to "take a view", which is enormously helpful. His client service is also excellent. He is always responsive to our needs.’

Key clients

  • UBS
  • DWS
  • 21 Shares AG
  • PGGM
  • BBVA
  • British Business Bank
  • HANetf Limited
  • The Bank of New York
  • Laser Digital