Fieldfisher

Financial Markets & Products

Director

Steven advises a broad range of banks, broker-dealers, hedge funds, asset managers and corporates on EU and UK financial regulation matters, including:

authorisation and perimeter issues; MiFID II and MiFIR; EMIR; CSDR; SFTR; Benchmarks Regulation; short selling; and MAR.

Steven is a specialist in financial markets regulation, with a particular emphasis on securities and derivatives trading and financial markets infrastructure. He has a particular interest in the regulation of commodities trading and I advise a number of Category 1 and 2 members of the London Metal Exchange.

Steven's experience includes advising on: MiFID II conduct of business requirements; client money and client assets; the Senior Managers & Certification Regime; systematic internalisers; derivatives clearing; trade transparency and transaction reporting; direct electronic access and algorithmic trading; regulatory margin arrangements; capital requirements and credit risk mitigation techniques; commodity position limits; and benchmarks regulation.

More recently Steven has advised financial institutions on their first forays into crypto-based products, such as crypto-backed exchange-traded notes and the tokenisation of commodities.

Steven also has substantial experience advising predominantly sell-side clients on derivatives and structured finance transactions. In particular, he have advised on: finance-linked derivatives and deal contingent transactions (in connection with acquisition financings, project financings, and securitisations); OTC and exchange-traded documentation; clearing documentation; structured repurchase, credit derivatives and total return swap transactions; stock lending; collateral management; and prime brokerage arrangements.

Prior to starting his legal career, he was briefly an interest rate derivatives trader at a large US investment bank. Combined with his transactional experience, this gives him a depth of product-level knowledge and experience that allows me to provide more practical and focused regulatory advice.