Team size: 21

What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

My current role is head of the EMEA asset servicing legal team. The team is responsible for supporting Northern Trust’s asset servicing business which provides custody, fund administration, and other outsourced solutions supporting asset owners’ and asset manager’s front, middle and back-office requirements. My team supports the UK, Ireland, Guernsey and the Middle East, whilst we also work very closely with the continental European legal team who support our business in Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.

Key team highlights during 2023 include advising the business on RFPs and service agreements for multiple large, multi-jurisdictional new business wins including:

Custody, front office solutions, middle office outsourcing and ancillary reporting services for £30bn UK public pension scheme

Private capital fund administration, depositary and ancillary services for semi-liquid funds located in Luxembourg, Guernsey, UK and Ireland with assets under management of approximately $34 billion

Consolidation by Australian asset management group of global asset servicing provider with NT for Irish, UK, Australian and Singapore based funds with AUM of $49m

Other key highlights include advising on the establishment of NT’s regional headquarters in Saudi Arabia – the first global bank to do so; and navigating regulatory, sanctions and contractual issues arising from Russian assets held in custody on behalf of clients. We initiated the production of quarterly management reporting to business stakeholders, providing transparency on WIP matters, departmental capacity and resourcing gaps; and supported NT’s procurement team on various transactions, most notably a new relationship with Finbourne Technology to provide NT enhanced valuations and reporting capabilities as a core part of its global digital transformation journey.

What are some of the main trends in the industry sector you work in in Ireland?

Data has always been key to successful investment decision making, and so Northern Trust’s clients are demanding faster and more agile technology and data framework to match their business goals. For the legal team at Northern Trust, this requires us to adapt our skill set to support new products and services, in particular SaaS or PaaS products.

At the same time, regulators’ focus on operational resiliency and the management of outsourcing risks continues. There is a challenge for lawyers from traditional banking, asset management or asset servicing backgrounds to become comfortable in advising their clients on technology, licensing, privacy and security matters in addition to their existing portfolio.

What are some of the main legislative or regulatory changes that have impacted you?

Regulatory focus on outsourcing risks and operational resilience continues to have a large impact. These regulations impact Northern Trust both directly as well as indirectly, and within our legal department, we have sought to mitigate the legal risk of agreeing to multiple clients’ standard vendor outsourcing amendments by creating our own amendment agreement in order to provide clients with an oven ready solution to address their own requirements, whether under the CBI’s CP138 framework or the PRA’s SS2/21.

Looking further down the line, we are actively examining the impact that the EU’s forthcoming CRD6 Regulation will have on our businesses within the EU.