Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has its roots in the financial institutions sector, having started as an adviser to the Bank of England in the 18th century, and the firm remains committed to providing the highest quality legal advice to its financial institution clients across our geographic borders and practice areas.

Our financial institutions group (FIG) invests in developing the specialist industry knowledge of our people, allowing them to combine their legal skills with a genuine understanding of the markets in which our clients operate. With some 400 lawyers, including 250 partners participating in the group, our FIG practice is recognised as a market leader in many countries.

We are able to provide our clients with integrated and established multi-jurisdictional teams who have the precise blend of expertise and experience for the job in hand. We advise our financial institutions clients both on their own account matters as well as in relation to the products and services they sell to their customers. The range of work we do for them includes:

  • M&A, public and private;
  • joint ventures and corporate restructurings;
  • regulatory and compliance, regulatory investigations and other disputes;
  • debt and equity capital markets, both for clients in terms of their own balance sheet management and as issuers, but also as underwriters, lead managers or selling shareholders;
  • structured, leverage and asset financing;
  • antitrust;
  • outsourcing;
  • data protection;
  • employment and benefits; and
  • tax advisory.

We have worked on many of the largest and most groundbreaking projects in the financial institutions sector and count many of the sector’s leading organisations as clients. Within FIG, we focus on:

  • banks;
  • insurers;
  • asset managers and investment funds; and
  • exchanges and market infrastructure.

Please see the Experience tab above for more detailed descriptions of the type of work we do in each of these areas.

We were the top-ranked legal adviser on European mergers and acquisitions in the third quarter of 2008 (by both volume and value), in a quarter "dominated by financial services and pharmaceutical transactions", according to Bloomberg. We are also ranked, for the second consecutive year, as the leading M&A adviser in Western Europe by Global Finance in its annual "Best Investment Banks" survey (September 2008) and were named Financial Services Legal Adviser of the Year at the Financial Times/Mergermarket Asian M&A awards (October 2008).

For more information please contact Jeremy Barton, business development manager.

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