About

His ability to protect the client and work through all the different issues is very impressive and a rare quality these days’, says one private practice admirer. ‘We have been involved in a number of transactions over the years with different in-house lawyers, and without doubt Michael outstrips them all’. With impressive international experience, Michael Byrne is praised time and again for his work ethic, people skills and commercial instincts. ‘He’s not a lawyer’s lawyer’, says another law firm. ‘He is driven by the commercial reality; he is someone who sees an issue and goes to solve it’. Joining Depfa the year before the 2008 crash, Byrne has supported the German-Irish bank through the most difficult period in history. ‘Managing, protecting and restructuring large scale assets post-bailout and trying to stay positive while the bank is in run-off has been a challenge but also a privilege’, he says. ‘It has required an understanding of the interests of a business comprising 20 to 40,000 employees worldwide; it’s a massive task, requiring good integration. I’d had no exposure to board before, and in Dublin, I am very much involved with board-level decisions’. During his time at the bank, Byrne has been involved in some of Europe’s biggest country bailouts in the wake of the financial crisis, including Italy, Iceland, Portugal, Malta and Greece. He has most recently drawn focus for his management of Depfa’s successful litigation against UBS in 2014. ‘Often in litigation you need things quickly – he was always tireless in getting things done’, one source says on his handling of the case. ‘He is not particularly interested in self-promotion, he’s not interested in the politics; he just does what he needs to’. Byrne previously specialised in emerging markets in Raiffeisen Bank’s Vienna office, where he also took a significant role in internal training across the wider business.