Partner Corporate and Commercial

Partner

Michael advises on a broad range of corporate and corporate finance transactional matters, including mergers and acquisitions, equity and debt capital markets, financings and complex corporate restructuring. Michael is widely recognised as one of the BVI's leading public company experts and its pre-eminent special purpose acquisition company expert. Michael's expertise in this area has been recognised internationally with him being invited to take prominent speaker roles in the SPAC industry's premier international convention, as well as being frequently published in leading capital markets journals.

With a client list including Coca-Cola, Hyatt Hotels, United Airlines, Western Union and Texas Pacific Group, Michael is highly regarded and respected by both clients and peers in the BVI's legal community. A standing which has led him to be sought out for industry and government advisory appointments in the Territory.

Michael is also a market leading adviser on complex corporate and finance reorganisations and reconstructions. He lead the BVI corporate teams on Constellation Overseas' 2019 ground breaking "soft touch" provisional liquidation and subsequent 2020 BVI scheme of arrangement, as well as the mammoth financial reorganisation of UK-Nigerian oil and gas group Severn Energy's note programmes.

Michael is a former member of the board of directors of BVI Finance and the long standing chairman of BVI Finance's Corporate Business Advisory Group. He is a leading adviser to both industry and government bodies in the BVI on the interpretation and application of the BVI's Economic Substance Law. As a thought leader and key figure in the BVI's embrace of FinTech and other new innovative financial services products Michael also sits on the BVI Financial Services Commission's Financial Services FinTech.

Michael studied at BPP Law School in London for his Post-Graduate Diploma in Law (with Distinction) and then for the Legal Practice Course (with Commendation). He was awarded the Blackstone Award for the most outstanding student of the year in 1999. Michael also holds both a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts degree from the University of Oxford (where he read history at St Peter’s College) and a Master of Arts degree from Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Admitted in:

2012 – British Virgin Islands 2002 – England and Wales (non practising)

Chairman of BVI Finance’s Team BVI, Corporate Business Advisory Group

Sits on the BVI Financial Services Commission's Financial Services FinTech

Michael studied at BPP Law School, London, University of Oxford and Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

He has since been admitted in BVI (2012) and England and Wales (2002).