MLF Advisory Board

Robins Brooks
Partner, Norton Rose LLP

Mark Campbell
Partner, Clifford Chance LLP

Jeremy Cross
Partner, SJ Berwin LLP

Frédérique Dahan
Senior Counsel, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

 

Frederique Dahan presently serves as Lead Counsel and Head of the Financial Law Unit (FLU) in the Legal Transition Team (LTT) at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which provides legal reform assistance to the countries of central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and has started taking steps to do so in the southern and eastern Mediterranean countries. Frederique oversees all of the FLU legal reform projects concerning secured transactions and access to credit, insolvency and creditors’ rights, corporate governance and securities markets. Frederique is a recognised expert in the subject matter, having personally worked on some of the key EBRD standards setting projects on secured transactions, collateral registers and mortgage lending. She was one of the authors of the EBRD study Mortgages in Transition Economies, published in 2008. She is also the Editor (with John Simpson) of Secured Transactions Reform and Access to Credit, 2008, Elgar.

Prior to joining the EBRD in 2000, Frederique worked as a Lecturer at the University of Essex, in the United Kingdom, teaching Comparative law, European Company Law, Cross-Border Insolvency and Business and Corporate Law Issues in Central and Eastern Europe. She was also a Research Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in London, UK.

Frederique is a qualified French solicitor. She received her Doctorate in Law from the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne.

Ben Davey
Managing Director and Head of the Financial Institutions Group EMEA, Barclays

 

Ben has extensive experience of advising on mergers and acquisitions, capital restructurings and capital raisings across all FIG sub-sectors, as well as specialising in advising sovereigns on issues related to financial crisis. Ben’s advisory transactions include Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation on its $7.3 billion acquisition of RBS Aviation Capital, The Co-Operative group on its proposed acquisition of Lloyds Branches, Alliance & Leicester on its acquisition by Santander, Lehman Brothers Asia on its sale to Nomura and ABN AMRO on its €71 billion sale to RFS Holdings.

Since 2008, Ben has advised numerous States on financial crisis related issues including Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Ireland, Hungary and Dubai.

Before becoming a banker, Ben practised for 6 years as a Chancery Barrister specialising in banking, trust and insolvency law.

Robin Dicker QC
Barrister, 3-4 South Square

 

Robin Dicker is a barrister and Queen's Counsel at South Square, specialising in business and financial law, including banking, company, corporate restructuring and insolvency.

 

Geoff Fuller
Partner, Allen & Overy LLP

Geoff has extensive experience of advising in relation to debt capital markets issuance and derivatives and structured finance work. Special areas of expertise include structured finance transactions as well as housing finance, liability management, public sector debt and advising corporate trustees.

Stephen Gillespie
Partner, Kirkland & Ellis LLP

Chris Hale
Head of Corporate, Travers Smith LLP

Chris joined Travers Smith in 1983 and became a partner in 1987. Chris is overall head of the firm's Corporate department which includes the Corporate Finance, Funds Formation and Private Equity groups (the latter of which he co-founded in 1996).

Chris specialises in UK and international buy-out work and is particularly experienced in public-to-private transactions. He acts for institutional investors and management teams on investments and divestments, as well as private equity-backed companies on M&A and other corporate matters.

Chris writes and lectures regularly on company law and private equity and has participated in BCL courses at Oxford for a number of years.  He is a regular contributor to various legal journals, being on the editorial boards of The Company Lawyer and Amicus Curiae. Finance in Europe rates Chris as an M&A expert and Chambers Global and The Legal 500 list Chris as among the world´s leading lawyers in private equity. Chris is the Treasurer of the Society of Advanced Legal Studies.

Ben Higson
Partner, Hogan Lovells International LLP

 

Ben is a London-based partner in the international corporate practice of Hogan Lovells and one of the firm's graduate recruitment partners. He focuses on cross-border transactions in the international energy, natural resources and infrastructure sectors, and his main work areas are mergers and acquisitions (public and private), joint ventures, project-related investments and exits, restructurings and complex commercial contracts. In addition to his commercial practice, he also conducts a significant amount of pro bono work, in particular in the social enterprise area. He is highly rated for high-end m&a by Legal500 and was named as one of The Lawyer's Hot 100 for 2011.

Alec Innes
Managing Director & Head of Corporate Solutions, Lloyds Banking Group

Alec read Jurisprudence at Jesus College Oxford, and Archaeology, Anthropology & History at Girton College Cambridge. A qualified solicitor, he started his career at Linklaters, before spending some years practicing in the Structured Finance Group at White & Case. His investment banking career began with leading the cash CLO and funds structuring desk at BarCap and he has had senior roles within both Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Barclays. Outside his business work he supports a number of charitable causes and he is a member of the Advisory Board of the Oxford MSc in Law and Finance, and of the Property Committee for the Worshipful Company of Salters. He is also a keen sportsman, enjoys opera and was recently the Chairman of the Solicitor’s Wine Society.

 

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George Karafotias
Partner, Shearman & Sterling LLP

 

George Karafotias is based in London and leads the US M&A practice in Europe for the firm.  He focuses on US domestic and cross-border M&A transactions and most recently advised ArcelorMittal in the disposal of its steel foundation business, Skyline Steel, to Nucor Corporation.  He is regularly called upon to advise on the US aspects of cross-border M&A transactions, and notable recent examples include advising Cadbury on its takeover by Kraft Foods and Charter International on its acquisition by Colfax Corporation.  He also led the 80-strong Shearman & Sterling team that advised RBS on its consortium acquisition of ABN AMRO.  George also advised AngloGold on its landmark acquisition of Ashanti Goldfields (a transaction considered by many at the time to be too complicated to even attempt).  He recently advised the financial advisors to BAE Systems in connection with its proposed combination with EADS.  He also recently advised one of the financial advisors to BP in connection with the sale of its 50% shareholding on TNK-BP to Rosneft.

George joined Shearman & Sterling's M&A group in New York in 1998.  He moved to London in 2003 and was made partner in 2006.

Eric Leenders
Executive Director, British Bankers Association

Peter Kiernan
Vice Chairman, Canaccord Genuity Hawkpoint

 

Peter Kiernan has 26 years’ investment banking experience and 30 years’ experience in financial services. He has been the lead adviser on over $130 billion of announced M&A and equity and debt capital raising transactions across a variety of sectors in the UK and internationally.

Peter is also a member of the Advisory Board of Pelham Bell Pottinger, the financial PR firm, and is a Non-Executive Director of Tungsten Corporation PLC, a special purpose vehicle established with the intention of making substantial acquisitions in the financial services sector.

As regards not-for-profit work, Peter is a Trustee of the Ireland Fund of Great Britain and a member of the Advisory Board for the University of Oxford Masters Degree in Law and Finance.

Before joining Hawkpoint in 2012, Peter was a Managing Director of Lazard, which he joined in January 2004 and where he was Head of UK Investment Banking until 2006.  Prior to joining Lazard, Peter was a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs. Peter started his investment banking career at S. G. Warburg & Co. Ltd. and became a Managing Director of its successor organisations (ultimately, UBS Warburg).

Peter was Director General designate of the UK Takeover Panel but declined to take up his post following the conclusion of Kraft Foods’ acquisition of Cadbury on which he acted as lead adviser to Kraft Foods.

Peter has an MA in Natural Sciences (Chemistry) from Cambridge University and qualified as a Chartered Accountant (ACA) with Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co. (now part of KPMG).

Helen Lamprell
Legal Director Corporate and Commercial, Vodafone Group plc

Helen joined Vodafone Group in 2003, where she has held a variety of legal roles starting with the Group treasury team before expanding to include acquisitions, disposals and joint ventures. In April 2011 she was asked to lead the corporate and commercial legal teams and now has responsibility for issues ranging from mobile payments to new licence bids to takeovers.

Helen has extensive experience in emerging markets, in particular India, where Helen led the Vodafone legal team in relation to its acquisitions and tax litigation.

Before joining Vodafone she worked at Linklaters in the capital markets team. Helen read law at Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

 

Paul Lewis
Partner, Linklaters LLP

Graham Nicholson
Chief Legal Advisor and Advisor to the Governor of the Bank of England

Graham Nicholson studied law at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and then built a long career at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.  In his early years as a partner in Freshfields he worked in New York and Singapore.  Following his return to London, he was head of the firm's corporate group from 1986 to 1990 and thereafter became Managing Partner of the firm.  He joined the Bank in 2009.  In addition to his current duties at the Bank of England, he serves as a member of the board of the Barbican Centre Trust.

Chris Saul
Senior Partner, Slaughter and May

Chris Saul read Law at St. Catherine’s College Oxford and joined Slaughter and May in 1977.  He became a Partner in 1986 and spent three years in New York (from 1991 to 1994).  He became Head of Corporate in 2004 and Senior Partner in 2008.  He specialises in corporate work, mergers and acquisitions and private equity and works with clients such as Unilever, GE, Goldman Sachs, Mothercare and First Reserve Corporation.  Outside his legal work he supports a number of charitable causes, is a member of the Advisory Board of CIHE and the Advisory Board of the Oxford MSc in Law and Finance and is a keen reader of fiction. 

Nick Segal
Partner, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP

Roland Turnill
Partner, Slaughter and May

Roland joined the firm in 1996 and became a partner in 2004. Roland has a broad commercial and corporate finance practice. His principal areas of work are public takeovers, private acquisitions and disposals, and initial and secondary public equity offerings.

Highlights include advising:

• Prudential on its proposed acquisition of AIA Group from AIG
• Banco Santander in connection with the consortium takeover offer for ABN AMRO
• Banco Santander on a rights issue
• Songbird Estates, the majority owner of Canary Wharf, on its recapitalisation
• Vodafone on its acquisition of Essar’s minority shareholding in Vodafone Essar

Roland is the co-author of a chapter entitled 'Share Dealings - Restrictions and Disclosure Requirements' in 'A Practitioner's Guide to the City Code on Takeovers and Mergers'.

Andrew Whittaker
Group General Counsel, Lloyds Banking Group

Andrew Whittaker was appointed by Lloyds Banking Group as its Group General Counsel on 14 December 2012, effective from 1 May 2013. Working with Deputy Group General Counsel Kate Cheetham, he is responsible for the strategic leadership and direction of the legal team across Lloyds Banking Group, which comprises c370 people in the UK and internationally.

Before he moved to Lloyds, Andrew was General Counsel to the Board at the Financial Services Authority and a member of its Executive Committee, and was most recently responsible for its input into the Financial Services Act 2012. He was appointed General Counsel in April 2000 after three years as Deputy General Counsel, leading the FSA’s input into the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. In addition to acting as a lawyer, Andrew has spent part of his regulatory career as a frontline supervisor of investment markets, and part as a policymaker. He is also a non-executive board member of the Legal Services Board and an author of a number of books and articles on issues in financial regulation.

Anthony Whittaker
Managing Director Institutional Solutions, Natixis

Mark Wippell
Partner, Allen & Overy LLP

Mark Wippell read Law at Brasenose College, Oxford and also holds a Master of Laws, from Tulane University where he held a graduate fellowship.  He joined Allen & Overy LLP as a partner in 1999 having previously been a partner at another British law firm.  He is admitted as a solicitor in England and Wales and as an attorney in New York, having practised on Wall Street in 1986 and 1987.  He advises major corporations and financial institutions on corporate, strategic and governance matters including mergers and acquisitions and securities offerings.  Clients and transactions on which he has advised include the successful restructuring of the Canary Wharf Group in the 1990s; the merger of Sun Alliance and Royal Insurance, ABN AMRO in relation to the offers by Barclays and the RFS consortium; Thomson on its acquisition of Reuters Group plc and Thomson Reuters on the subsequent unification of its Dual Listed Company structure.