Slaughter and May

Partner; Alex advises on a broad range of corporate and commercial transactions, with a particular focus on public and private M&A, equity financings and restructurings, as well as infrastructure, energy and natural resources matters.

Andrew Jolly

Partner; Andrew undertakes a broad range of corporate and corporate finance work. His practice consists principally of acting for clients on domestic and international corporate finance and M&A transactions, including acquisitions and disposals, mergers and public takeovers, restructurings, equity financings and joint ventures. Andrew is an expert advising clients on company law, corporate governance and other board-related matters. He is Head of our Risk practice and a member of the Company Law Committee of the Law Society. Andrew also heads our Sport team, counting football, in particular, as a specialist area. He is a trustee of The Arsenal Foundation.

Andy Ryde

Partner; Andy was Head of our Corporate and M&A Practice from 2014 to 2022 and continues to head one of the three corporate groups. He is active in all fields of corporate law, with a particular emphasis on acquisitions and disposals, public takeovers and mergers, stock exchange matters and equity capital markets transactions. Andy was named Client Partner of the Year at The Lawyer Awards 2015, was one of five lawyers shortlisted by Financial News for its Partner of the Year Award 2016 and was named as one of the Twenty Most Influential in Legal Services in Europe by Financial News in 2021. His clients include: FTSE 100 companies such as DS Smith and RSA other listed companies such as Direct Line, Domino’s Pizza, Ibstock, Intermediate Capital Group, International Personal Finance, IWG (formerly Regus), Marlowe, Marshalls, Non-Standard Finance, Reach and Vitec multinationals such as GE, Moody's, Schneider Electric and Texas Instruments

Azadeh Nassiri

Partner; Azadeh has a broad financing practice covering acquisition and general bank financings, structured finance, project finance, debt capital market transactions and derivatives as well as corporate recovery and restructuring matters. Her clients include leading financial institutions and investment funds, pension trustees as well as corporates (ranging from large listed companies to small unlisted companies).

Camilla Sanger

Partner; Camilla has a wide experience of handling complex and substantial disputes which often span multiple jurisdictions. Her practice covers commercial, banking and competition litigation and contentious regulatory investigations, as well as internal reviews. She has acted for a number of major corporates, banks and other financial services institutions. A particular focus of her practice is on class and group action claims; she has acted on many significant class action proceedings, including some of the highest profile competition-litigation claims before the English courts.

Caroline Phillips

Partner; Caroline has a broad international practice covering banking, capital markets, securitisation, derivatives and structured finance in which she advises issuers, borrowers and counterparties of all types. Caroline is qualified in England and Wales. Caroline regularly acts for a number of UK and international companies – from FTSE 100 companies to large private companies, from PE Sponsors to their portfolio companies. Recent clients include: Athora, Aviva, Barratt Developments, Canada Life, Corsair, Currencies Direct, Drax Group, INEOS, Just Group, KPS, Ovo Energy, Palamon, Pension Insurance Corporation and Walmart.

Charles Cameron

Partner; Charles advises sponsors, trustees and insurers on corporate pension plans. His experience ranges from pension plan restructuring driven by M&A or insolvency, to funding and covenant negotiations on change of control, to plan closures. Corporate pension plans combine uniquely the features of reputation sensitivity and financial risk in a legal context which is complex, highly regulated and where the positions of trustees, sponsors, shareholders, employers, unions, regulators and politicians need reconciling. Charles has a lot of experience in doing so, and in leading or being part of the multi-disciplinary adviser teams necessary, sourced from our financing, insurance, tax and dispute resolution groups.

Charlie McGarel-Groves

Partner; Charlie advises public and private institutions, corporates and sponsors on a broad range of financing matters covering debt capital markets, securitisations, derivatives and structured products, acquisition finance, leveraged and investment grade loans, complex security and collateral arrangements, and repackagings.

Christian Boney

Partner; Christian has a broad corporate practice, with particular experience in public and private M&A, joint ventures and equity capital markets work. Christian advises corporates across the full spectrum of their lifecycle, from start-ups to some of the largest companies in the FTSE 100.

Claire Jackson

Partner; Claire has a broad corporate and corporate finance practice, advising on all forms of domestic and international M&A transactions, including public takeovers, private acquisitions and disposals, joint ventures, and equity financings. She has particular expertise in the pharmaceutical, life sciences and healthcare and insurance sectors. Claire also has experience in shareholder activism and has advised a number of corporate clients on recent activist campaigns.

Claire Cooke

Partner; Claire has a broad international financing practice covering acquisition and bid finance, general bank finance, debt capital markets and financial restructurings.

Claire Jeffs

Partner; Claire is Co-Chair of the Competition Group globally and works in Slaughter and May’s Brussels and London offices. Claire has extensive experience of both EU and UK competition law. She has been involved in a large number of high-profile merger cases before the EU and UK competition authorities, as well as coordinating merger approvals worldwide. On the contentious side, she has been involved in many cartel and other behavioural cases, including on appeal to the General Court in Luxembourg.

Craig Cleaver

Partner; Craig has a general commercial, corporate finance and financing practice with particular experience in public takeovers, private acquisitions and disposals, demergers and joint ventures. Craig also has experience in a range of insurance work for mutual and proprietary companies and has advised on large-scale demutualisations. In addition, he has worked extensively on outsourcing and other commercial contracts.

Damian Taylor

Partner; Damian is a partner in the Disputes and Investigations Group and is the co-head of the International Arbitration Group. He advises on all contentious matters, drawing on his broad experience across a wide variety of disputes before the High Court, Competition Appeals Tribunal and international arbitration Tribunals, as well as advising clients on investigations commenced by regulators. Damian has particular experience in the field of competition law, group actions, contractual interpretation, insurance and commercial fraud. He acts for clients across a broad spectrum including energy and financial institutions, governments and high profile sports clubs. Damian sits on the firm's Africa Practice Group and helps develop the firm's practice in Africa, as well as acting for African clients and clients investing in Africa.

Daniel Schaffer

Partner; Dan is a partner in our Pensions Employment & Incentives Group. He joined the firm in 2017. He has over twenty two years of partner experience. His practice is transactional, general advisory and contentious. He advises employers and trustees. Dan’s experience includes preparing for a sale process, benefit redesign and covenant and funding solutions.

David Ives

Partner; David’s practice covers Intellectual Property, Technology, Outsourcing, and Sport. He is the firm’s Head of Intellectual Property and advises on IP protection, exploitation and enforcement, including a particular focus on franchising and sponsorship agreements. He also advises on strategic technology, telecoms and business process sourcing and on software licensing and development agreements, and is an active member of the firm’s Commercial Contracts advisory team.

David Johnson

Partner; David heads one of the firm’s corporate groups and has over 25 years’ experience advising on a wide range of corporate transactions, commercial agreements and governance matters. He has particular expertise in public and private M&A transactions, joint ventures and equity financings. David acts for a number of listed companies, including Arrow Global Group, BAT, BHP, Cineworld, GlaxoSmithKline, IAG, Marston’s, SEGRO and The Restaurant Group.

David Watkins

Partner; David’s principal areas of practice include mergers and acquisitions of both public and private companies, general corporate finance, equity capital markets and corporate governance. He advises clients across a broad range of sectors including financial institutions, insurance, media and IEN.

Deborah Finkler

Managing Partner; As our Managing Partner, Deborah works closely with our Senior Partner to develop and promote the firm’s strategy and global approach, and with our COO to oversee the strategic running of the firm. Deborah’s practice covers the broad spectrum of commercial litigation as well as domestic and cross-border investigations. She acts on substantial and complex commercial disputes for a wide range of clients, as well as on restructuring and insolvency. Deborah is regarded as one of the UK’s leading lawyers in the field of banking and commercial litigation and regulatory investigation. She has acted for many major financial institutions across a spectrum of contentious matters, including acting for major financial institutions in relation to LIBOR and FX. Deborah has also led our teams on various financial crime and mis-selling enforcement actions brought by the FCA.

Dominic Robertson

Partner; Dominic advises a wide range of businesses on all areas of tax law. His practice includes: structuring and other tax aspects of M&A, joint ventures and other corporate finance transactions tax enquiries and disputes, including EU tax State aid investigations standalone tax advisory work, including group reorganisations, CFCs, transfer pricing, and the tax treatment of IP Dominic is co-head of the firm’s Tax Disputes practice.

Duncan Blaikie

Partner; Duncan advises clients on a full range of intellectual property, technology and commercial contract matters across all sectors, including in relation to M&A transactions, complex business carve outs, emerging technology and digital strategy. Duncan was a medical doctor prior to becoming a lawyer and advises across a range of transactions in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and healthcare fields. Duncan is also one of the partners in our Data Privacy hub, advising clients on data protection and privacy issues arising in respect of commercial transactions, technology arrangements and commercial contract matters. He is named in Legal 500 UK, 2023 as a ‘Next Generation Partner’ for IT & Telecoms and as a leading individual for Commercial Contracts.

Ed Fife

Partner; Ed advises borrower clients across a range of vanilla and structured financing activities and lenders on more highly structured lending transactions. Ed regularly acts on leveraged finance, infrastructure and real estate financing transactions.

Efstathios Michael

Partner; Efstathios is a partner with a broad-ranging international commercial litigation (including class actions), insurance and arbitration practice. He has particular expertise in a number of areas including: On complex multi-party disputes, shareholder disputes and mass claims which often involving multiple jurisdictions. He works closely with clients and co-counsel in a range of jurisdictions, on collective proceedings and class action claims. On a wide range of insurance cases for policyholder clients, insurers/reinsurers and brokers, including complex cases in relation to policy coverage and interpretation, aggregation, non-disclosure and misrepresentation, and brokers’ liability issues. Efstathios is a significant and leading member of our Arbitration Group, with particular expertise in complex, high value energy sector disputes and he has conducted arbitrations under the rules of all the major arbitral institutions, including ICC, LCIA and SIAC.

Ewan Brown

Partner; Ewan is Co-Head of our Global Investigations Group. He has a broad-based contentious practice with a particular focus on financial institutions, acting in both litigation and regulatory investigations. Ewan also has experience advising in relation to corporate crime, competition claims, shareholder disputes, outsourcing and tax appeals.

Filippo de Falco

Partner; Filippo has a broad corporate practice advising private equity and corporate clients, with a particular focus on public and private M&A, joint ventures and international capital markets work. Filippo is a country partner for Spain and Italy and regularly advises Spanish and Italian clients on corporate transactions.

Gareth Miles

Partner; Gareth’s practice covers all direct taxes, stamp duties and value added tax with a strong focus on corporation tax. He has extensive experience of corporate transactions, including, in particular, public and private M&A (domestic and cross-border) and group reconstructions. He also has significant expertise on private equity transactions, for example advising Blackstone on a £100m strategic minority equity investment in HH Global, on the acquisition by HH Global of Adare International Holdings Limited and an investment in Ki, the first fully digital and algorithmically-driven Lloyd’s syndicate.

Gayathri Kamalanathan

Partner; Gayathri has extensive experience of handling complex domestic and cross-border investigations and litigation. She has more than a decade of leading edge experience from senior in-house roles at banks as Head of Group Litigation and Enforcement at Danske Bank in Copenhagen and UK Head of Litigation and Regulatory Enforcement for Deutsche Bank, and spent nine years at another leading law firm advising corporates and financial institutions across a broad spectrum of contentious regulatory, litigation and arbitration matters.

Guy O'Keefe

Partner; Guy has a wide ranging practice which covers banking, capital markets and structured finance. He advises financial institutions, funds and governments on investments in and fund raisings of financial institutions, including restructurings and asset sales. Guy regularly acts for a number of UK and international companies, including Drax Group, Euroclear, Banco Santander, Santander UK, Legal & General, Prudential, United Utilities, GlaxoSmithKline, UK Asset Resolution, M&G and Direct Line.

Harry Bacon

Partner; Harry has a broad international practice advising private equity clients and corporates on private equity investments, acquisitions and disposals, joint ventures, mergers and public takeovers, capital raisings and direct and indirect listings.

Harry Hecht

Partner; Harry has a broad corporate practice, both transactional and advisory, with particular experience in public and private M&A, joint ventures and equity capital markets work. Harry’s advisory practice includes a particular focus on ESG-related issues.

Holly Ware

Partner; Holly has a broad practice including commercial, competition and banking litigation and contentious regulatory and criminal investigations. Holly advises clients including major corporate entities and financial institutions across a range of sectors. Holly has cross-jurisdictional investigation experience involving both regulatory and prosecuting authorities, including those relating to bribery and corruption, market abuse and money laundering. In addition to her commercial litigation work, Holly has experience of competition litigation in the High Court, Competition Appeal Tribunal and before the European Court of Justice. Holly’s competition litigation practice includes follow-on damages claims, standalone claims and judicial review proceedings.

Hywel Davies

Partner; Hywel has advised on a wide range of corporate and commercial transactions. He has particular experience in public and private M&A, joint ventures and equity financings as well as infrastructure, energy and natural resources matters.

Ian Johnson

Partner; Ian heads our Restructuring and Insolvency group and advises across the full spectrum of restructuring, refinancing and insolvency matters. He has significant experience advising companies (and their boards), lenders, investors and buyers on complex and international restructuring and distressed situations. Ian also frequently advises governments, central banks and insolvency practitioners.

Isabel Taylor

Partner; Isabel has a competition and regulatory practice and advises across a range of industries, including regulated industries, on merger control, general competition law, sectoral regulatory requirements, and public procurement. She has a particular expertise in State aid law.

James Cook

Partner; James has a broad international corporate and commercial practice, advising on public and private M&A activity, joint ventures and equity capital market transactions. He also advises clients on company law and reorganisations, corporate governance and other general advisory matters. James is a member of the firm’s Tech Transactions team, and has particular experience in the TMT sector, including significant expertise in data centres and emerging tech.

James Stacey

Partner; James is a partner in the Disputes and Investigations Group, and is co-head of our International Arbitration Group. James has a broad ranging international disputes and investigations practice. He has a particular focus on international commercial arbitration and has advised extensively on corporate, company, M&A and infrastructure arbitrations under the rules of all the major arbitral institutions, including the ICC, LCIA and UNCITRAL. James also advises clients in relation to significant, cross-border and domestic litigation, and has advised on many contentious tax disputes, frequently with an international element.

Jan Putnis

Partner; Jan is Head of our Financial Regulation Group and co-Head of our Financial Institutions Group. Jan’s practice focuses on matters of strategic importance to financial institutions, with particular emphasis on regulatory advice (both contentious and non-contentious) and multi-jurisdictional corporate and commercial transactions. He acts for a broad range of financial institutions, including banks, investment banks, brokers, insurance and reinsurance groups, market infrastructure operators, asset managers and fintech businesses. Jan has been at the forefront of the industry’s thought leadership on the impact of Brexit, which includes working with several industry bodies, such as UK Finance and TheCityUK. He is recognised as a leading individual in the 'Financial Services: Non-contentious Regulatory' section of Chambers UK, and is the contributing editor of The Banking Regulation Review (Law Business Research, since 2010). He is a regular contributor to PLC Magazine and a member of the Financial Markets Law Committee.

Jane Edwarde

Partner; Jane is head of the real estate team. She advises in relation to all aspects of real estate including acquisitions, disposals, development, planning, leasing, financing and the real estate aspects of corporate transactions. Jane is qualified in England and Wales and in Scotland. Jane is one of the firm’s diversity and inclusion partners and is also a sponsoring partner for Collaborate, the firm’s legal tech programme.

Jeff Twentyman

Partner; Jeff undertakes a broad range of corporate and commercial work for both corporate and private equity clients, advising on acquisitions and disposals, joint ventures, mergers and public takeovers, flotations and equity capital markets and private equity investment. He is Head of our Private Equity group and Head of Sustainability.

John Nevin

Partner; John has considerable experience in a wide range of real estate work. He has acted extensively on acquisitions and disposals of all types of property interests, on significant development projects and on major lettings.

John Papanichola

Partner; John has a broad corporate and corporate finance practice. He has particular experience in public and private M&A and equity capital markets.

Jonathan Clark

Partner; Jonathan has a strong and varied litigation and investigations practice advising a wide range of financial services and corporate clients. He has deep experience defending allegations of deliberate wrongdoing, having advised on criminal and regulatory investigations and litigation involving alleged corruption, fraud, cartel activity and tax evasion. Jonathan’s litigation practice includes a focus on banking cases relating to complex derivatives transactions and benchmark manipulation, as well as multi-jurisdictional competition litigation in a number of sectors. He also advises clients in a number of different industries on appeals to the Competition Appeals Tribunal from decisions of the UK competition authorities. Jonathan has particular interest and experience in advising clients in relation to ongoing business and PR issues in the context of live litigation or investigations.

Jonathan Cotton

Partner; Jonny is Co-Head of our Global Investigations Group. For over 25 years he has helped many clients investigate and defend allegations of wrongdoing in civil, criminal and regulatory cases across sectors from telecoms to fast-moving consumer goods to financial services. On the criminal/regulatory side, Jonny regularly acts on investigations, criminal prosecutions and regulatory cases concerning the Bribery Act, the Proceeds of Crime Act, the Fraud Act, FSMA, export controls and sanctions, as well as Companies Act offences. On the civil side, Jonny advises on fraud cases involving extractive frauds, accounting frauds, misrepresentations, the ‘theft’ of confidential information by employees and competitors and conspiracy. Jonny is also often involved in contractual disputes, competition disputes and restructuring/insolvency matters. He also often advises on contentious aspects of corporate transactions, including takeovers.

Jonathan Marks

Partner; Jonathan is head of one of our corporate groups and our insurance practice. He has a corporate and corporate finance practice and has been involved in demutualisations, fund-raisings, joint ventures and private and public acquisitions.

Laura Houston

Partner; Laura advises clients on the full spectrum of IP, tech and commercial contracts matters. Laura’s IP practice covers both advisory and transactional work. She has extensive experience in advising clients on the protection and exploitation of IP rights across a broad range of sectors and industries, alongside portfolio management matters. In addition, Laura frequently acts on IP licensing arrangements, as well as the IP and technology aspects of mergers, acquisitions, disposals, investments and joint ventures. On the tech side, Laura advises on all areas of traditional and emerging technologies, including blockchain, AI and Internet of Things, both in an advisory capacity and as part of wider transactions. Laura also has significant experience in advising on the transitional servicing aspects of corporate transactions, in addition to a wide range of other commercial arrangements underpinning such transactions. Laura is also an active participant in our Data Privacy hub, advising clients on data protection and privacy issues in a wide range of contexts.

Lisa Wright

Partner; Lisa advises in relation to all aspects of competition and regulatory work including merger control, antitrust, sectoral regulation, competition litigation, state aid and public procurement. She also advises on foreign investment. Lisa works in both our London and Brussels offices. She is a member of the Brussels Bar (A list), as well as being qualified as a solicitor (England and Wales).

Mark Zerdin

Partner; Mark advises on a wide range of transactions for corporates, private equity clients and family offices. His principal areas of work are public takeovers, private acquisitions and disposals, private equity investment and joint ventures. Mark also heads our Latin American practice.

Matthew Tobin

Partner; Matthew is Head of our Debt Capital Markets practice. He advises on a wide range of banking and financing work, including acquisition and bid financing, capital markets and securitisation transactions. Matthew also leads our Sustainable Finance practice which has advised on several green bonds issued by banks and multinationals and also green loans.

Michael Corbett

Partner; Michael is the Co-Head of our Infrastructure & Energy Group (I&E). He has a broad corporate and corporate finance practice, which includes public and private M&A transactions, complex corporate and commercial transactions (including business transformation projects), joint ventures, equity offerings, corporate governance and company advisory matters. Michael has previously been seconded to JP Morgan Chase and to GE Real Estate.

Mike Lane

Partner; Mike is Head of our Tax practice. He has extensive experience advising domestic and international clients on a wide range of transactions, including public and private M&A, debt and equity capital markets transactions, group reorganisations and structured finance, as well as on contentious matters, such as diverted profits tax and transfer pricing disputes, unallowable purpose challenges and State aid investigations.

Natalie Cook

Partner; Natalie has a broad corporate and commercial practice, acting for a range of domestic and international corporate clients. Her practice has a particular focus on public takeovers, private acquisitions and disposals, joint ventures and general advisory matters.

Nicholas Pacheco

Partner; Nick is a partner in our Corporate Group and a member of our Financial Institutions Group. He has a wide-ranging corporate, commercial and M&A practice, and does a significant amount of work for insurers, asset managers and other financial institutions.

Nick Bonsall

Partner; Nick is a partner in our Financial Regulation Group and a member of our Financial Institutions Group. He has a broad financial institutions practice, with extensive experience advising insurers, banks and asset managers on a range of stand-alone advisory and transactional projects. Nick also supports financial services clients on supervisory and contentious regulatory matters concerning UK and overseas regulators. He is regularly called upon to advise on complex prudential regulatory matters, and has a keen interest in and understanding of the EU / UK regulatory regimes for solvency/own funds and governance, and also on transactions designed to create capital efficiency or otherwise be accretive to solvency / capital ratios. Nick frequently advises on financial institution reorganisations and portfolio acquisitions/disposals, including by way of the UK Part VII process. As part of this work, he advised one of the largest UK retail banks throughout its preparation for and implementation of measures to comply with the UK retail banking ring-fencing regime. Nick is a member of Slaughter and May’s Brexit Committee and sits on the Financial Markets Law Committee’s scoping group for insurance. He is the co-author of the UK chapter of The Banking Regulation Review and the author of the EU chapter of The Asset Management Review (both published by Law Business Research).

Oliver Moir

Partner; Oly is a member of our infrastructure, energy and natural resources practice and our real estate practice. He has wide-ranging experience in the acquisition, disposal and development of all real assets. He has a particular focus on the energy and infrastructure sectors, including large-scale projects, M&A and commercial matters across the value chain. He is a member of the firm’s steering committees for the energy and infrastructure and the commercial contracts streams.

Oliver Wicker

Partner; Oliver has developed a leading bank and borrower finance practice. He advises on a wide range of financing transactions, including structured finance, acquisition/leveraged finance, derivatives and debt capital markets matters. He also regularly acts for purchasers and sellers of loan portfolios and associated businesses.

Padraig Cronin

Partner; Padraig has been a partner at the firm since 2001. His previous focus was on public and private M&A, equity capital markets and private equity, and he was based in our Hong Kong office between 2007 and 2011. Since 2017, he has focused entirely on our employment and employee benefits practice. His transition demonstrates the genuine multi-specialist nature of our practice. He brings with him a wealth of experience in advising on cross-over areas between corporate and employment, such as TUPE, restructurings, outsourcings, board-level hirings and firings and executive remuneration. Padraig’s key clients over the years include Cazenove, GE, Prudential and Tata Steel. More recently, he has advised Innogy and Legal & General on employment aspects of significant transactions.

Paul Dickson

Partner; Paul has a broad practice covering a range of corporate and corporate finance matters for listed and unlisted clients. His experience includes advising on public takeovers and mergers, private M&A, equity capital markets and asset management transactions, together with partnership and investment fund structures.

Paul Mudie

Partner; Paul has a wide range of corporate and commercial experience. His broad practice includes advising on public mergers and acquisitions, private acquisitions and disposals, joint ventures, capital markets, general company law, cyber security, corporate governance, commercial agreements, insolvency and group restructurings. He is an active member of the firm’s Commercial Contracts advisory team and its Financial Institutions Group.

Peter Wickham

Partner; Peter is a partner in the Disputes and Investigations Group and has a broad-ranging international commercial arbitration and litigation practice. Peter is a significant and leading member of our Arbitration Group, with particular expertise in complex, high value energy sector disputes, conducting arbitrations under the ICC, LCIA and SIAC rules. Peter has a wide experience of handling complex and substantial litigation which often spans multiple jurisdictions, with his practice encompassing commercial, class action / group, competition and banking litigation. Peter has also been involved in advising corporate and banking clients in relation significant investigations / regulatory matters.

Philip Linnard

Partner; Phil Linnard has been a partner since 2017, and advises across all aspects of our employment and incentives practice. He also advises on pensions. Phil’s employment work focuses on arrangements for the appointment and termination of senior executives of listed and non-listed companies, as well as sensitive issues involving whistleblowing, investigations and terminations of employees in difficult circumstances, and the conduct of senior employees within the UK and overseas. His incentives work involves advising on the corporate governance aspects of executive remuneration, as well as the drafting, implementation and operation of equity and cash incentives plans for listed and non-listed companies. Phil also specialises in the employment and incentives aspects of corporate transactions including the application of TUPE, IPOs, demergers, restructurings, outsourcings and insolvency matters.

Philip Snell

Partner; Philip has a broad banking and finance practice advising corporates, financial sponsors and financial institutions on a wide range of financing transactions including acquisition and leveraged financings, corporate loans, debt capital market transactions, derivatives and restructurings. In particular, Philip advises the treasury departments of a number of large multi-national corporations on their financing transactions and the corporate aspects of these. Philip’s clients are based in the UK and across the world. They include Arsenal Football Club, Akzo Nobel, BHP Billiton, Eesti Energia, GE, Greencore Group, Homeserve, JCB, Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company, Morgan Stanley Real Estate funds, Naspers, Premier Oil, Songbird Estates and Terra Firma.

Philippe Chappatte

Partner; Philippe has extensive experience of both EU and UK competition law with expertise in merger, cartel, behavioural and competition litigation cases in both jurisdictions. Philippe is resident in our London office, but is also established in Brussels, where he spends a proportion of his time. He is a member of the Brussels Bar (A list), as well as being qualified as a solicitor (England and Wales).

Rebecca Cousin

Partner; Rebecca is Head of our Equity Capital Markets practice and Co-Head of our Data Privacy practice. Rebecca’s corporate practice consists of advising clients on M&A transactions, both public and private, joint ventures, equity issues, initial public listings and long term commercial contracts. She also advises on day-to-day company law and corporate reporting and governance matters. Rebecca advises a number of clients on all aspects of Data Privacy, including on stand-alone compliance queries, in corporate transactions, e-commerce, commercial contracts and global investigations. Rebecca is a contributing author to Tolley’s Company Law Service, Privacy Laws and Business, and sits on the Consulting Editorial Board of Lexis PSL.

Richard Smith

Partner; Richard is co-head of our Corporate and M&A Group. His principal areas of work are in public and private M&A, joint ventures and equity capital markets work.

Richard Jones

Partner; Richard has a wide-ranging financing practice covering bank lending, debt capital markets, securitisations, structured finance, project finance, asset-backed lending and derivatives. He has acted for a number of high profile clients including both listed and private companies, banks and other financial institutions, pension funds, private equity firms and various governments. Richard has experience across a wide number of industries, including the banking, consumer credit and wider financial sector, insurance, leisure and hospitality and energy and natural resources.

Richard Jeens

Partner; Richard has a broad, multi-jurisdictional disputes practice covering high profile commercial litigation, public law, pensions and tax disputes. He has experience advising clients at all stages of a dispute - from how to avoid potential challenges when planning and implementing transactions through to eventual proceedings.

Richard Swallow

Partner; Richard is Head of our Disputes and Investigations Group. Areas of particular expertise include corporate crime and sanctions investigations, group/class action litigation (competition, mass tort and securities claims), and banking litigation and investigations. With over 25 years of experience of a wide range of complex and substantial disputes and investigations, Richard has represented clients in high-value, multi-jurisdictional, proceedings and significant global regulatory and criminal investigations. Richard spent three years working in our Hong Kong office advising on a range of commercial disputes throughout the South East Asia region. He is admitted as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales and as a Solicitor of the High Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

Richard Todd

Partner; Richard is a member of our infrastructure, energy and natural resources practice. He specialises in the project aspects (including concession arrangements, joint ventures, engineering, construction and operation and maintenance) of major international and domestic assets and transactions, with a particular focus on infrastructure and energy (traditional and renewables). He is a member of the steering committee for the energy and infrastructure stream at the firm and is also an active member of the firm’s commercial contracts and Africa advisory teams. Richard’s key clients include market-leading project sponsors and developers, pension funds, infrastructure and energy funds and governments.

Rob Sumroy

Partner; Rob is a partner in our IP/Tech group and Head of our Technology and Strategic Sourcing practices. He is global co-head of the Data Privacy Hub and co-leads both our cross stream Cyber Advisory unit and our Emerging Technology team. He advises on all areas of technology, digital and data, including around emerging technologies such as blockchain, AI/ML and IoT, as well as privacy, cyber and the regulation of data across a broad range of sectors. He regularly helps clients understand and mitigate risk, whether linked to a changing regulatory compliance framework, adapting to evolving technological advancement, implementation of material transformation programmes or the increasing complexity around the management of data. His IP practice involves advising on the creation, protection and exploitation of IP rights in a diverse range of sectors, including media, financial services, technology and sport. Rob also has significant experience in handling the IP, technology and data protection aspects of mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and other major corporate transactions. As head of the Strategic Sourcing practice, Rob is often called on by clients to advise on risks, structuring options and commercial impacts of sourcing and procurement arrangements. In this role, Rob was part of our 4-partner team leading our independent review of the problems faced by TSB with its major IT platform transformation, the report on which was published in 2019.

Robert Byk

Partner; Robert advises on a wide range of banking, finance and corporate transactions, including acquisition and bid finance, structured finance, debt and equity capital markets and general banking and corporate work.

Robert Innes

Partner; Rob has broad corporate and corporate finance experience, with a focus on public takeovers, international private M&A and equity capital markets. He also co-headed our Tech Transactions Group.

Robin Ogle

Partner; Robin is active in our corporate and asset management practice and undertakes a broad range of work for corporate, private equity and investment firm clients. This includes advising on capital raisings, cross-border and domestic acquisitions and disposals, public takeovers, joint ventures and investment products.

Roland Turnill

Partner; Roland is Co-Head of our Financial Institutions Group and has recently stepped down after six years as Head of our Mergers and Acquisitions practice. His principal areas of work are public and private M&A, joint ventures, activism defence, governance and crisis management.

Sally Wokes

Partner; Sally advises on a broad range of corporate and commercial transactions. Her practice mainly consists of acting for corporate clients on domestic and international transactions (including private acquisitions and disposals, public takeovers and joint ventures) and general advisory matters.

Samay Shah

Partner; Samay has a broad financing practice covering acquisition finance, general bank finance and project finance, as well as restructurings. He also has broad experience advising on corporate and commercial transactions, particularly in the infrastructure, energy and natural resources sectors.

Sandeep Maudgil

Partner; Sandeep advises on a broad variety of pensions and employment-related matters. His practice is transactional, general advisory and contentious. He advises employers and trustees. His experience includes management of issues arising from scheme funding deficits, implementing the transition to more affordable benefit structures and full or partial buy-outs of pension scheme liabilities. He is at the forefront of thinking in developing collective defined contribution (CDC) schemes, acting as the sole external legal adviser on the ground breaking CDC scheme which Royal Mail designed with their unions under the new Pension Schemes Act 2021 regime.

Simon Nicholls

Partner; Simon is co-head of our Corporate and M&A group. His principal areas of work are public and private M&A, joint ventures, activism defence, governance, crisis management and investigations. He acts for a number of listed companies, including Babcock, Diageo, GlaxoSmithKline, John Wood Group, Morgan Advanced Materials, Ultra Electronics and Whitbread.

Simon Hall

Partner; Simon has been involved in a wide range of commercial transactions. He has been especially involved in utilities-related transactions, including M&A, regulation, financing and contracts and in banking transactions of all kinds including, in particular, project and acquisition finance. He has also been engaged in a number of restructuring and insolvency matters, particularly since the onset of the credit crunch in September 2007.

Steve Edge

Senior Consultant; Steve, who qualified with Slaughter and May in 1975, acts for clients across the full range of our practice. Steve advises on the tax aspects of private and public mergers, acquisitions, disposals and joint ventures and on business and transaction structuring (including transfer pricing in all its aspects) more generally. He also advises many banks, insurance companies, hedge funds and others in the financial services sector in a wide range of areas. In recent years, Steve has been heavily involved in several large scale interventions under HMRC’s high risk corporates programme and in many in-depth tax investigations of specific domestic or international issues including transfer pricing in particular. He thus has considerable experience of negotiating and dealing with HMRC at all levels. A large part of Steve's practice involves advising non-UK multinationals (particularly those based elsewhere in Europe and in the US) on cross-border transactions and tax issues of various types. In that area of his practice, he works closely with other leading international tax advisers around the world. Being described as “a leader in the tax world” (Chambers, 2021), Steve has consistently been ranked at the top in leading directories, including as a Senior Statesperson for corporate tax in Chambers for the last couple of years. Steve is co-editor of the Transfer Pricing Law Review and contributing editor of the Chambers Global Practice Guide on Corporate Tax, and a patron of the Bridge the Gap campaign of TaxAid and Tax Help for Older People.

Steve Cooke

Senior Partner; Steve is the Senior Partner of the firm. He headed our Mergers and Acquisitions practice from 2001 to 2016. He has a general corporate and M&A and investigations practice, with particular experience in takeover bids and other Stock Exchange related work. Steve acts for a number of listed companies including FTSE 100 clients Aviva, Barratt Developments, BAT, Centrica, Diageo, Hikma Pharmaceuticals, International Airlines Group, Reckitt Benckiser, Rolls-Royce and WPP and FTSE 250 clients Big Yellow Group, Morgan Advanced Materials, Morgan Sindall and Spectris.

Steven Galbraith

Partner; Steven has a broad financing, infrastructure and energy practice including extensive experience in projects and project financing, infrastructure acquisitions and investments and acquisition financing. His clients include major development, oil and gas and operating companies; and private equity, banks and state-owned enterprises.

Susan Hughes

Partner; Susan has a broad financing practice covering acquisition finance, general bank finance, project finance, debt capital markets transactions and refinancing and restructuring work. She also has broad experience advising on corporate transactions and energy and infrastructure transactions.

Thomas Peacock

Tom is a partner in our Corporate Group and a member of our Financial Institutions Group. He has a broad corporate, commercial and M&A practice supporting insurers, asset managers and other financial institutions. In particular, he does a significant amount of work in the insurance sector including M&A, corporate reorganisations, insurance and reinsurance arrangements, de-risking transactions, insurance regulation (including Solvency II) and general corporate advice.

Tim Blanchard

Partner; Tim has a broad investigations and contentious regulatory practice, which spans a wide range of authorities, including the UK Financial Conduct Authority, the Serious Fraud Office, the European Commission and the UK Competition and Markets Authority. Tim’s particular expertise includes advising major corporations and financial institutions in respect of bribery and corruption, regulatory and antitrust investigations. He also has extensive experience of related competition litigation matters.

Tom Vickers

Partner; Tom advises across the full spectrum of restructuring and insolvency matters, including complex corporate restructurings and contentious and non-contentious insolvency matters. In the financial services space his experience includes bank resolution and insolvency work for governments, central banks and insolvency practitioners.

Victoria MacDuff

Partner; Victoria has a broad corporate practice and advises on all forms of M&A activity, private acquisitions and disposals, equity capital market transactions, reorganisations, joint ventures and cyber security. Victoria has particular experience in the financial services and telecommunications sectors and is also an active member of the firm’s Commercial Contracts advisory team.

William Turtle

Partner; William is based in London, but spends a significant amount of his time in Brussels. William has extensive experience in a wide range of competition and regulatory matters. He has been involved in a number of major cartel and other behavioural cases, including global antitrust investigations. He has also acted on a number of high-profile merger cases (including at Phase II) before the EU and UK competition authorities. In addition, he has significant experience in the field of competition litigation, including in appeals before the EU and UK courts. He is a member of the Brussels Bar (A list), as well as being qualified as a solicitor (England and Wales).

William Watson

Partner; William’s a partner and his practice covers all UK taxes relevant to corporate and financing transactions. Particular areas of interest include real estate and the oil and gas sector. However, William also has extensive experience of M&A, demergers and other corporate structuring, private equity and debt and equity financing and in recent years he has built up a substantial (and, to date, successful) tax litigation practice.

Bertrand Louveaux

Legal 500

Our Team

FAQs

Marketing Resources

Newsletters

Contact us