Practice
Azad Ali is counsel in the firm’s Financial Institutions Advisory & Financial Regulatory Group. He advises financial institutions, including banks, investment banks, exchanges, clearing houses, fund managers, custodians, trading platforms, settlement systems, insurers, brokers and other financial institutions on legal and regulatory aspects of their businesses and transactions in London and the continental European markets. He is listed in the Legal 500, Who’s Who in Law and recommended in the Financial Service (non-contentious) category in UK Legal 500, 2012.

Shearman & Sterling’s Financial Institutions Advisory & Financial Regulatory Group recently won the “Legal Business 2012 Regulatory Team of the Year” award.

• Institutions including Anglogold, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Banco Itaú, Bank of New York, Blue Mountain, Bradesco, BTG Pactual, Caxton, CCBI, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Crown Mortgages Management, Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Börse/Eurex Clearing, Development Bank of Japan, Dutch Central Bank, Goldman Sachs, Hudson River Trading, ICE, Innisfee Limited, JPMorganChase, Lazard, Lloyd’s of London, Maverick, Morgan Stanley, NASDAQ, Qatalyst Partners, S3, Shenkman Capital Management, Inc., Silicon Valley Bank, Sunguard, UBS, Willis and ZKB on financial regulatory advisory work, including in relation to:
  • authorisation processes;
  • conduct of business;
  • control and disclosure of information;
  • investigations and enforcement;
  • regulatory capital and capital structuring;
  • regulatory perimeter issues and scope of regulatory permissions;
  • financial promotions;
  • terms and conditions of business;
  • custody, account, prime brokerage and other agreements;
  • corporate governance;
  • data protection;
  • regulatory notification and reporting issues;
  • impacts of new UK and EU financial services legislation; and
  • collective investment scheme issues.

• ICE Inc. on its acquisition of NYSE Euronext (including regulatory approvals and clearing arrangements)
• SIX x-clear AG on acting as clearing house to the London Stock Exchange in parallel with LCH.Clearnet, in the world’s first truly interoperable competitive clearing arrangement
  • FT Innovative Lawyers Awards 2009 recognition for “Standout” work 
• LMAX Limited in the establishment of the first MTF trading contracts for differences
  • Nominated for The Lawyer 2011 Competition/Regulatory Awards  
• Bank of Canada on OTC derivatives clearing
• Chicago Mercantile Exchange on its application for status as a recognised overseas clearing house, and various compliance and regulatory matters
• Eurex Clearing AG on acting as clearing house to the Irish Stock Exchange and settlement arrangements on UK and Irish equity options and futures
• SIX x-clear AG on acting as clearing house to several MTFs including parallel competitive clearing arrangements with other European clearing houses, and settlement finality designation
• MTFs such as Swapstream and FX Marketspace in relation to their trading rules and ongoing compliance matters
• Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. on establishing a new derivatives clearing house, obtaining recognised status from the UK regulator, settlement finality designation, transition of the open interest from LCH. Clearnet
  • FOW 2009 “Most Innovative work by a Law Firm” in the field of exchange-traded or centrally cleared derivatives
  • Legal Business 2010 Structured Finance/Debt Capital Markets Team of the Year
• DTCC on derivatives trade matching services 
   

• Depfa Bank in its merger with HRE Bank
• Deutsche Bank in the sale of it’s asset management business
• Allianz in the sale of Dresdner Bank to Commerzbank AG
• Legg Mason Inc. on its acquisition of Citigroup’s asset management business
• Citigroup in the largest credit card joint venture in the world to date, and in its sale of CEFS, which managed the UK’s Post Office Card Accounts, to JPMorganChase Bank—the first major test of Part VII of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 for banking businesses
• Dresdner Bank AG in its sale to AIG Global Investment Group of a global portfolio of investments in 150 private equity funds having an original commitment value of approximately €1.1 billion
• HRE Bank in the investment made by the JC Flowers’ group of private equity funds
• International Petroleum Investment Company in its $3.25 billion investment in Barclays, and subsequent divestment
• Mizuho Corporate Bank Limited in its investment in Evercore Partners
• Technology Crossover Ventures funds in various investments in technology companies and infrastructure providers
• Acquisition of a minority stake in the Bank of Ireland
  Acquisition of online payments services provider
• Various parties in aborted bids to acquire an exchange and clearing organisation, a UK life insurer, a financial advisor group, a carbon credits project manager, an asset management business and others

• Various issuers and most of the main banks and brokers (see client lists above) on selling restrictions, stabilization, market abuse issues, analysts’ research, ethical walls, disclosure issues and corporate publicity in connection with equity and debt offerings

• Various fund managers on UK regulatory compliance, prime brokerage and custody arrangements, LLP issues, pension fund investor issues, reporting and disclosure, conflicts of interest, market abuse, AML/KYC requirements etc.

• Various clients such as Willis, Munich Re and others on characterisation, solvency, conduct of business and other issues

• Various clients on confidential matters involving market abuse, conduct of business, LIBOR manipulation and other issues

• U.A.E. government on reforming its financial regulatory framework and drafting underlying legislation
  • Legal Business 2012 Regulatory Team of the Year
  • FT Innovative Lawyers Awards 2012 recognition for “Standout” work

• Regulatory aspects of employee share offerings made by Credit Suisse, EDF, France Telecom, Sanofi-Aventis, Viacom, Safran, Danone and others

• Holmes 6 securitisation for Abbey National using master trust structure
• Whole-business securitisation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Theatres group, acting for Lehman as arranger
• Several of HSBC’s corporate loan securitisations using two-tiered trust structure
• Securitisation by British Land in respect of land leased to Sainsbury’s, acting for UBS as arranger
• Aborted securitisation of a global portfolio of project finance loans originated by a European bank, aborted whole-business securitisation of nursing homes, tenanted and managed portfolios of pubs among others
• Various CDOs, CDO squareds, repackagings arranged by JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, UBS and others
• Various restructurings of securitisation deals
• Mortgage servicing arrangements

Publications

• “Guest Comment: This is what you need to know about the proposed EU regulation of hedge fund and private equity pay,” EFinancial Careers (July 2012)
• “What’s broken with the UK’s client asset and money protections and how to fix it,” JIBLR (with Barney Reynolds, Thomas Donegan and Aatif Ahmad, October 2010)
• “Living Wills – Where There’s a Will,” IFLR (with Gregg Rozansky, June 2011)
• “House of Commons Treasury Committee’s seconf report on the banking crisis,” Complinet (with Katerina Rainwood, 2008)
• “FSMA banking business transfers: choosing the right route,” PLC (with Barney Reynolds and Thomas Donegan)