Europe - France

Latham & Watkins

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Latham & Watkins has extensive expertise advising asset managers, insurance companies and other financial institutions on complex structured finance and derivatives. The practice notably assists with complex regulatory challenges and transactions, including the purchase of non-performing loan portfolios from French banks, as well as French bank capital relief transactions alongside investor funds or insurers selling credit protection. Thomas Vogel and Suzana Sava-Montanari head the practice. They are supported by associate  Jaime Hall.

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Key clients

  • Natixis
  • BNP Paribas CIB
  • BofA Securities Europe SA
  • HSBC Plc
  • TotalEnergies SE
  • Lagardère SA
  • AXA SA
  • AXA Investment Managers
  • Club Méditerranée
  • SCOR
  • Schoeller Allibert Services B.V.
  • Dilmon LLC
  • Al Mirqab Holdings LLC
  • Emirates Telecom. Group Company (Etisalat Group) PJSC
  • The McCourt Company
  • Interactive Brokers Group
  • Newmarket Investment Holdings, LP
  • Christofferson Robb
  • Magnetar Capital
  • D. E. Shaw & Co., L.P.
  • Sculptor Capital Management
  • Canopius Managing Agents Limited
  • Polus Capital Ltd
  • MakerDAO
  • Schroders Capital
  • CPPIB

Work highlights

  • Advised AXA SA in connection with a flagship repurchase of own shares in an amount of EUR 1bn to neutralise earnings dilution from disposals.
  • Advised MakerDOA (the issuer of the DAI stablecoin) in connection with the documentation of a structured margin facility (under French law) over a covered bond issued by Société Générale in token format.

Lawyers

Rising stars

Leading individuals

Thomas Vogel

Thomas Vogel

Latham & Watkins LLP

Thomas Vogel is a partner in the Paris and Frankfurt offices of Latham & Watkins. Mr. Vogel leads the Structured Finance and Derivatives Practices and the Fintech Industry Group in Paris. He is also a member of the Financial Regulatory Practice and the Global Digital Assets & Web3 Practice. Mr. Vogel regularly acts for global financial services firms, investment managers, hedge and investment funds, sovereign funds, and UHNW individuals. He advises on structured finance transactions, alternative investment structures across asset classes including structured strategic equity solutions, structured fixed-income transactions (delivered in synthetic format through derivatives instruments or in funded format through debt securities), strategic contingent hedging transactions, regulatory capital and synthetic risk transfer transactions, NPL portfolio transfers, synthetic credit, fund, energy, catastrophe and longevity derivatives, structured repo, and stock-lending transactions. Mr. Vogel also advises emerging companies, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), financial institutions, and investment managers on complex regulatory challenges in the development of bespoke financial crypto-asset and cryptocurrency technologies or DeFi market solutions including token sales, trading, refinancing, clearing, and settlement solutions on distributed ledger technology. He also advises clients on domestic and cross-border cutting-edge Fintech initiatives. He has also advised numerous corporates on innovative NFT and semi-NFT projects. Mr. Vogel regularly advises clients on financial regulatory issues (including in the crypto space) and pre-contentious financial disputes in the context of mediation, arbitration and litigation procedures, as well as on internal derivatives compliance programs and derivatives clearing documentation. Mr. Vogel has acquired years of transactional experience in New York, London, Hong Kong, and Tokyo both as a private practitioner (with a Magic Circle firm) and senior in-house counsel (with a leading US investment bank in New York). In recent years, he has represented clients in multi-billion dollar structured transactions in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Mr. Vogel is a member of the Frankfurt Bar Association.

Next Generation Partners

Suzana Sava-Montanari

Suzana Sava-Montanari

Latham & Watkins LLP

Suzana Sava-Montanari is a partner in the Paris and London offices of Latham and Watkins. Ms. Sava-Montanari is a member of the firm’s Financial Institutions Industry Group and Structured Finance and Derivatives Practices. Ms. Sava-Montanari regularly advises investors on a wide variety of structured credit, fund-linked or tax driven structures, including securitizations, capital relief trades, cash and synthetic CLOs, public and private debt, hybrid capital market issues, and OTC derivatives. She has also advised banks, sovereigns, and corporates in relation to structuring and implementing their general or finance-linked hedging strategies (FX, interest rate and commodity) or using equity derivatives in strategic transactions. Ms. Sava-Montanari’s regulatory practice includes advising EU and non-EU financial institutions, asset managers, and corporates with their regulatory compliance requirements under EMIR, including in connection with clearing, margining, and reporting, as well as in their dialogue with the European rule- making bodies. As part of her pro-bono work, Ms. Sava- Montanari assisted through the Financial Services Volunteer Corps in Washington, D.C., the Albanian Financial Services Authority in preparing its new Investment Funds Law. She was also one of the leaders of Latham & Watkins’ Women Enriching Business network.

Practice head

The lawyer(s) leading their teams.

Thomas Vogel

Other key lawyers

Suzana Sava-Montanari, Jaime Hall