About

Team size: 150+
Major law firms used: Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Linklaters, Shearman & Sterling, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom

GC Powerlist regular Sajid Hussein heads Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s legal department in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Hussein, who is based in London, and his team provide legal support to global corporate and investment banking, as well as global markets, on a broad range of global transactions. This covers a range of businesses, including capital markets trading and origination, M&A, equities, rates, currencies and commodities, as well as regulatory, employment, litigation and insolvency issues in the region.

Hussein moved to Bank of America as associate GC in 2005, having started his legal career at Allen & Overy before joining Deutsche Bank in 2001. He retained his role following Bank of America’s $50bn acquisition of Merrill Lynch at the height of the financial crisis.

Regulatory change has inevitably dominated the team’s workload in recent years, while in 2016 it established an EMEA-based technology review team charged with exploring initiatives, new tools and technologies to benefit both the business and the legal team.

Major transactions the team supported include: Comcast’s $39bn acquisition of Sky; Unilever’s €3.3bn acquisition of GSK’s consumer nutrition business; and the second-largest deal in EMEA in the year to date, RWE’s sale of innogy to E.ON for approximately $74bn.

Hussein is also widely regarded for his work on diversity and inclusion initiatives. The in-house team supports Aspiring Solicitors, a programme that works with university law students from LGBTQ, BAME and socially disadvantaged backgrounds, providing lectures, mentoring and networking events. Hussein’s team also puts an emphasis on diversity and inclusion with its partner law firms, annually assessing them on their BAME and gender statistics.

Hussein comments: ‘We operate in a fast-paced environment, supporting the global banking and markets team on multibillion-dollar, cross-border deals. I am hugely proud of our team, who provide sound legal counsel to the business throughout EMEA.’