Sullivan & Worcester LLP

Geoffrey Wynne

Geoffrey Wynne is head of the Trade & Export Finance Group and Sullivan's London office. He has extensive experience in banking and finance, specifically corporate and international finance, trade and structured trade and commodity finance, electronic bank and digitising trade finance, structured finance, asset and project finance, syndicated lending, equipment leasing, workouts and financing restructuring, leveraged and management buy-outs and general commercial matters. Recognised as one of the leading trade finance lawyers globally, Geoff has advised extensively many of the major trade finance banks around the world on trade and commodity transactions in virtually every emerging market including CIS, Far East, India, Africa and Latin America. He has worked on many structured trade transactions covering such diverse commodities as oil, nickel, steel, tobacco, cocoa and coffee. The team which Geoff leads has won numerous awards and recognition for its work in the Trade and Export Finance industry. In 2021 the firm was named ‘GTR Law Firm of the Year for Innovation’, recognising the role the firm played during the initial stages of the pandemic in 2020 helping to ensure the trade finance industry was able to move to a secure digital environment from a legal perspective.

Simon Cook

Simon Cook has experience in a wide variety of banking and finance transactions, including in particular in relation to structured trade finance, trade finance, project finance, invoice discounting facilities and borrowing-base facilities in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the CIS. His work in the structured trade area covers a range of pre-export and prepayment financings acting for both lenders and borrowers notably in oil, telecoms, soft commodities and metals sectors with particular experience in Africa and the Middle East. Simon has worked and travelled extensively in Africa and the Middle East, having spent over three and a half years in Dubai. He has participated in a number of structured trade finance and project finance conferences and seminars throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa, including speaking at conferences on PPP in South Africa; on project finance and structured trade finance at Afrexim's annual structured finance conferences in Egypt, Ghana, Zambia and South Africa; and at structured trade finance seminars and general finance in London, Paris, Lisbon, Geneva, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, South Africa, Zambia, Uganda, Ghana, Nairobi and Dubai.  

Sam Fowler-Holmes

Sam Fowler-Holmes specialises in structured and unstructured trade, commodity and export finance, advising both financial institution and corporate clients on a range of financing products including pre-export financing, pre-payment financing, letter of credit and payment instrument facilities and working capital and borrowing base financings. He has extensive experience advising clients on a wide variety of supply-chain finance structures and has acted for electronic platform providers and platform participants. Sam regularly advises on risk distribution techniques, including funded and unfunded participations and standby letters of credit and demand guarantees, and on insurance-related issues. He has acted on matters in relation to numerous jurisdictions across mainland Europe, CIS, Africa, Asia and the Americas and in connection with a significant range of commodities including oil, gas, metals and soft commodities. Sam is a regular speaker at the Sullivan trade and export finance seminars and is a member of the International Trade and Forfaiting Association (ITFA) Emerging Leaders Committee.

Mark Norris

Mark's practice covers cross border inward investment, syndicated lending, structured export credit finance, structured trade and commodity finance, debt restructurings and asset finance. He has been recognised in The Legal 500 UK as "excelling" in structured export credit transactions and is praised for his "commercial and user-friendly approach." Mark advises on ESG financings including hospitals, clean energy and transportation, and advises on financial crime, modern slavery, bribery and corruption issues in connection with trade and export finance. He led Sullivan’s response to the UK Government's consultation on UK Export Finance (UKEF)'s anti-bribery and corruption policy, with many of his recommendations accepted by the UK Government. He has advised financial institutions, funds, corporate borrowers, agents and trustees, and national and supranational sovereign/quasi-sovereign organisations on award-winning finance transactions throughout Africa, Western, Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and the CIS and the Middle East. Mark has extensive sector experience in infrastructure financing across Africa including off-grid power, healthcare and transportation, and has lived and practised law in the Czech Republic (Prague), England (London), Germany (Düsseldorf and Frankfurt) and Russia (Moscow). Mark holds graduate and post-graduate degrees with honours from the London School of Economics.