Financial Services — London Practice

Overview

At the forefront of market knowledge and innovative legal change

The London-based members of Crowell & Moring U.K. LLP’s Financial Services Group (FSG) routinely represent major investment banks and financial institutions, commercial banks, alternative capital providers, hedge funds, corporate, and private equity funds. Our FSG practice spans the full range of structural, legal, and documentary considerations that arise in complex financial transactions across all major asset classes. Our experience with sophisticated and specialised financial products allows us to skillfully advise our clients on the development, transaction execution, ongoing legal risk management, regulatory developments, and litigation aspects of their varied transactions. Our team’s wide range of experience provides clients with a unique, cross-practice approach that is essential to their navigation through today’s demanding and complex global market environment.

Our FSG attorneys are at the forefront of finance law and practice, and are renowned for their practical and commercial approach and in-depth knowledge of the U.K., U.S. and European markets. Having advised on some of the most high-profile finance and structured finance, Fintech, lititgation, restructuring, and regulatory transactions in these as well as Asian and Latin American markets, we bring strong market intelligence, innovative solutions, and structuring advice to any transaction. We are extremely efficient, practical, and commercial and, as one major investment banking client noted in Legal 500, “are the best on the street by far, always timely, proactive, insightful, and commercial”.

Our FSG team also keeps a finger on the pulse of key governmental and industrial regulatory bodies that govern financial products and services, to ensure that our clients remain ahead of the curve. Members of our team are active participants on committees that advise organisations such as the Loan Market Association (LMA), U.K. Finance, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), the Committee on European Insolvency Reform, and the European Leveraged Finance Association, amongst other organisations.

Cross-practice intelligence

Our FSG practice includes each of the following practice areas and specialises in the transactions highlighted:

Debt finance and securitisations. We represent U.K., US., and other international banks, funds, and other institutions in relation to the provision of bilateral and syndicated secured and unsecured credit facilities, both domestically and cross-border in multiple jurisdictions. Particular areas of expertise include asset-based lending (ABL) and other specialty finance and commercial finance transactions; securitisations and other receivables financings, and multi-tiered leveraged financings and the associated intercreditor arrangements. We also have material experience in representing creditors and debtors in restructurings of credit facilities and securitisation programs.
Bankruptcy, restructuring and insolvency. Our team represent an array of clients in all aspects of contentious and non-contentious insolvency, restructuring, fraud, and asset-recovery. We have significant experience in both domestic and cross-border insolvency and restructurings. We work closely with boards of directors of companies and their financial stakeholders to implement appropriate strategies to turn a distressed business around, utilising formal insolvency procedures and out of court restructuring tools to best advantage.
Derivatives and structured finance. Our team specialises in fixed income, foreign exchange and commodities transactions, complex integral derivatives transactions forming part of an M&A, infrastructure project, leveraged or high-yield transactions on a finance linked/secured basis or deal contingent form, private equity fund hedging solutions, repackaging transactions, securities lending and margin loans, bespoke financings such as credit linked notes, loan facilities, risk participation, and sustainable derivatives and digital assets derivatives.
Distressed loan and claims trading. This practice focuses on the secondary loan trading market, and our attorneys are able to draw on decades of active loan trading experience in the U.K., European, and U.S. loan markets, to provide our clients with expert advice relating to par and distressed loan trading strategies and settlement, as well as provide insights into insolvency claims, trading of other distressed assets, and in-depth loan facility analysis.
Litigation and dispute resolution. Our seasoned litigators handle domestic and cross-border disputes worldwide, having identified, protected, recovered, and repatriated billions of pounds in assets through freezing injunctions as well as disclosure, search, and seizure orders, tracing remedies, and litigation heard before courts and international arbitral bodies. We regularly act on behalf of banks, asset-based lenders, funds, insurers, and other entities and individuals in litigation involving complex commercial, banking, and investment disputes, fraud investigations asset-recovery litigation, guarantee and indemnity claims, and more.

Our FSG attorneys are at the forefront of finance law and practice, and are renowned for their practical and commercial approach and in-depth knowledge of the U.K., U.S. and European markets. Having advised on some of the most high-profile finance and structured finance, Fintech, lititgation, restructuring, and regulatory transactions in these as well as Asian and Latin American markets, we bring strong market intelligence, innovative solutions, and structuring advice to any transaction. We are extremely efficient, practical, and commercial and, as one major investment banking client noted in Legal 500, “are the best on the street by far, always timely, proactive, insightful, and commercial”.

Our FSG team also keeps a finger on the pulse of key governmental and industrial regulatory bodies that govern financial products and services, to ensure that our clients remain ahead of the curve. Members of our team are active participants on committees that advise organisations such as the Loan Market Association (LMA), U.K. Finance, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), the Committee on European Insolvency Reform, and the European Leveraged Finance Association, amongst other organisations.

Cross-practice intelligence

Our FSG practice includes each of the following practice areas and specialises in the transactions highlighted:

Debt finance and securitisations. We represent U.K., US., and other international banks, funds, and other institutions in relation to the provision of bilateral and syndicated secured and unsecured credit facilities, both domestically and cross-border in multiple jurisdictions. Particular areas of expertise include asset-based lending (ABL) and other specialty finance and commercial finance transactions; securitisations and other receivables financings, and multi-tiered leveraged financings and the associated intercreditor arrangements. We also have material experience in representing creditors and debtors in restructurings of credit facilities and securitisation programs.
Bankruptcy, restructuring and insolvency. Our team represent an array of clients in all aspects of contentious and non-contentious insolvency, restructuring, fraud, and asset-recovery. We have significant experience in both domestic and cross-border insolvency and restructurings. We work closely with boards of directors of companies and their financial stakeholders to implement appropriate strategies to turn a distressed business around, utilising formal insolvency procedures and out of court restructuring tools to best advantage.
Derivatives and structured finance. Our team specialises in fixed income, foreign exchange and commodities transactions, complex integral derivatives transactions forming part of an M&A, infrastructure project, leveraged or high-yield transactions on a finance linked/secured basis or deal contingent form, private equity fund hedging solutions, repackaging transactions, securities lending and margin loans, bespoke financings such as credit linked notes, loan facilities, risk participation, and sustainable derivatives and digital assets derivatives.
Distressed loan and claims trading. This practice focuses on the secondary loan trading market, and our attorneys are able to draw on decades of active loan trading experience in the U.K., European, and U.S. loan markets, to provide our clients with expert advice relating to par and distressed loan trading strategies and settlement, as well as provide insights into insolvency claims, trading of other distressed assets, and in-depth loan facility analysis.
Litigation and dispute resolution. Our seasoned litigators handle domestic and cross-border disputes worldwide, having identified, protected, recovered, and repatriated billions of pounds in assets through freezing injunctions as well as disclosure, search, and seizure orders, tracing remedies, and litigation heard before courts and international arbitral bodies. We regularly act on behalf of banks, asset-based lenders, funds, insurers, and other entities and individuals in litigation involving complex commercial, banking, and investment disputes, fraud investigations asset-recovery litigation, guarantee and indemnity claims, and more.