Macfarlanes LLP

Derivatives and Trading

Rob specialises in derivatives, securities finance and prime brokerage. He has considerable experience of trading, custody, brokerage and clearing agreements for derivative products, repos/stock lending and physical commodities.

Rob advises brokers and buy-side clients across a wide range of asset classes, and on the associated regulations and issues of market practice.

Rob advises investment and hedge funds, banks, pension funds and insurers, high-net-worth individuals and corporates on a broad range of documents and transactions. These include equity and credit derivatives, OTC derivative clearing and exchange-traded derivatives, prime brokerage, repo and securities lending, custody, margin financing, FX and commodities.

Prior to joining Macfarlanes, Rob worked for investment banks in London for 17 years, most recently for UBS, where he was a Managing Director and Head of the European Equity Derivatives and Prime Brokerage legal teams. Prior to UBS, Rob worked for Nomura International and Lehman Brothers; and for the New Zealand Securities Commission prior to arriving in the UK.

Rob has been involved in contributions on numerous regulatory initiatives, including OTC derivatives clearing, short-selling, safe custody, client money and shadow banking. Rob has been the lead drafter of a number of industry-standard OTC derivatives template documents that are now widely used by market participants.

Qualified in New Zealand in 1993 and E&W in 2016