Olivia Merrett is an associate in the Financial Institutions Advisory & Financial Regulatory practice.

Olivia advises financial institutions, including banks, brokers, exchanges, clearing houses, fund managers, insurers, corporates, and other end-users.  Her practice involves advising on legal and regulatory issues arising in clients' businesses, including regulatory advice, structuring, authorizations and licensing, change of control, compliance policies and procedures, client agreements and terms of business, incident management, investigations, enforcement and financial services disputes work.

Advising banks, brokers, financial institutions, exchanges, clearing houses and corporates on business structure, ongoing compliance, and other advisory issues authorizations and licensing of new businesses

• change of control and management / governance
• client agreements / terms and conditions of business
• policies and procedures
• regulatory capital, capital instruments and capital structuring
• scope of regulatory permissions and regulatory perimeter issues
• custody, account, prime brokerage, derivatives, security, collateral and other agreements
• corporate governance, senior managers regime, allocations of responsibility
• anti-money laundering and sanctions
• regulatory reporting
• legal opinions and memoranda on regulatory matters

Establishing new financial institutions or financial companies and regulatory approvals

• Société Générale on its announced joint venture with Alliance Bernstein for their research and securities brokerage businesses.
• Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) on its partnership with Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and nine of the world’s largest energy traders to establish ICE Futures Abu Dhabi, a new exchange in Abu Dhabi Global Market hosting the world’s first Murban crude oil futures contracts.

Structuring and facilitating acquisitions and disposals of financial businesses or holdings in such businesses

• ICE on its acquisition of a strategic stake in Euroclear plc from The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc for €275 million.

Investigations, enforcement and litigation

• A major European bank in connection with an investigation into alleged money laundering.
• Certain investors in London Capital & Finance plc on their judicial review of the decisions of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (R v Financial Services Compensation Scheme Limited), a complaints process in which the FCA's decision not to compensate investors was held invalid by the Financial Regulators Complaints Commission and an upheld complaint against the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
  - Law Firm of the Year, Peer2Peer Finance Awards, 2023

Derivatives Regulation, Commodities

• A broad range of hedge funds, banks, central banks, development banks and corporates on derivatives clearing, reporting, margin, contractual provisions and conduct of business requirements, including the EMIR, MiFID II package, CRR2 and Basel 3 and SFTR among others.

Legislative drafting

• A Middle Eastern country on the establishment of a new legal regime within its territory.
• Numerous institutions and infrastructure providers on proposals to amend or introduce new laws and regulations in the UK and elsewhere.

Capital markets offerings and transactions

• Various issuers and most of the main banks and brokers on selling restrictions, stabilization, analysts’ research, ethical walls, market soundings, disclosure issues, Market Abuse Regulation matters and publicity in connection with their equity and debt offerings.

Olivia spent time on secondment with Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), primarily advising ICE Futures Europe and ICE Clear Europe.