Regulation, Compliance and Advisory

Regulatory frameworks are constantly evolving across sectors and around the world. As transparency rises in importance and the costs of non-compliance with laws and regulations increase, businesses everywhere strive to adapt to the growing pressure from regulatory bodies.

If you’re in a regulated industry or sector, it’s vital to understand the regulations that affect your business. We can guide you through your regulatory requirements and help you stay compliant with practical, sector-specific advice.

We’ll explain which areas of your business are regulated and by which authorities. We’ll also help you anticipate potential regulatory issues in the future and plan ahead to overcome them as effectively as possible.

If you’re under investigation or facing disciplinary action, we can give you discreet and professional support to limit the damage to your professional and personal life. We’re not just expert advisers, but also defend businesses and individuals in court.

This first-hand experience with the regulators and their strategies means you get the very best defence from the start.

Our lawyers can advise you on complying with professional or industry regulations, and defend you and your reputation if you face regulatory investigation.

We’ll help you:

• Audit your business for existing compliance issues
• Comply with information requests;
• Develop compliant policies and procedures;
• Draft compliant contracts;
• Establish and run a fully compliant investment fund;
• Gauge which of your services and employees are regulated and which are exempt;
• Get authorization to begin regulated activities or provide regulated services;
• Invest in a regulated business;
• Manage regulatory investigations and fitness to practice hearings.
• Merge with or acquire regulated businesses;
• Prepare for and handle interviews with your regulator;
• Report the right information to your regulators;
• Stay up-to-date with regulatory changes;
• Understand what regulations affect you, and how.

Fintech

With digital innovation driving an unprecedented shift in financial services, we provide the full range of legal services financial institutions and fintech innovators need to develop and adopt products and services such as crowd funding, e-payment platforms, cryptocurrencies, digital banking and peer-to-peer lending. As the only law firm advising on the World Economic Forum’s Role of Financial Services Project, we have closely examined the impact of technology-enabled innovation on financial stability.We advise clients on fintech matters including data protection, regulatory compliance, tax structuring, capital raising, consumer protection, commercial contracts, M&A, competition law and employment matters. Our years of experience acting for some of the world’s largest and most innovative technology companies gives our fintech clients access to time-tested techniques and strategies.

RegTech

FinTech has become a well-established focus within the banking and financial sectors. With a glut of new legislation affecting financial and professional service firms, regulatory technology, or “RegTech” has arrived. Venture capital investment in the RegTech sector is growing dramatically.While RegTech promises to ease the burden and cost of compliance for regulated entities, it also brings its own complexity, which only a collaborative effort among all participants in the now expanded regulatory ecosystem can hope to resolve.Our professionals are embracing the shift toward more collaborative relationships within the regulatory ecosystem and have transformed to be the trusted advisors.Working with developers of FinTech solutions, as well as investors and financiers, our team is committed to bringing innovative solutions to life to meet our client’s evolving needs.Our Professionals work closely with the client and support the development of digital products for our clients and also take part in developing innovation hubs and sandbox environments to support the development and viability of RegTech solutions.While the global financial crisis demonstrated a system is only as strong as its weakest link, collaboration around RegTech development ensures all players work together to strengthen the system as it continues to evolve.

Our main activities are as follows:

• Regulatory analysis of FinTech business models, in particular for Initial Coin Offering (ICO) or Security Token Offering (STO)
• Investor selection criteria and specifications for artificial intelligence (AI) processing of fundraising (KYC process)
• Legal and regulatory advice when investing in FinTech companies
• Compliance and fight against money laundering (AML)
• Request for authorizations or non-action letters.
• Drafting of contracts and internal documents
• Manage key areas of contractual complexity for instance 3rd party risk and liability
• Integrate own services with RegTech solutions deployed across clients
• Strengthen SME advice to clients – solution users and investors

Suptech

In the same way technology is changing the financial services industry, technology is also changing how the industry and supervisory authorities implement and enforce regulations.

Today, an increasing number of supervisory authorities are turning to technology to support their work, leveraging so-called supervisory technology (SupTech) applications to digitize report and regulatory processes.

What is SupTech?

SupTech refers to the use of innovative technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) by supervisory agencies to support supervision. In other words, it’s the technologies for the regulators themselves.

As with other RegTech solutions, SupTech is about improving efficiency through the use of automation, streamlining administrative and operational procedures, and digitalizing data and

How can we Help?
Our firm is committed to advice on how to reduce the burden on firms and allow for more proactive monitoring, better reporting, oversight and overall compliance on the regulator’s side. Ultimately, this means lower costs over time and better allocation of supervisory resources.