Regulatory

Key Contacts

Ralph Lovesy, Partner at Acuity Law
Consultant
Consultant Partner
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Overview
Work
Accolades & Testimonials
Meet The Team

In an increasingly complex regulatory environment, businesses face an intricate web of ever-changing and ever-growing regulations, with severe penalties for compliance failures or poor conduct.

Our cross-disciplinary lawyers proactively assist companies with managing risk, challenges and strategies, helping our clients interpret and comply with regulation across different jurisdictions. We also deal with breaches when they occur.

Put simply, as former regulators, senior in-house counsel and consultants our team members have seen it all – from both sides of the table.

Financial Services

      • Advising fintech company Wealthify on a strategic investment by Aviva
      • Drafting and advising on the terms and conditions of business for financial services and FCA-authorised businesses, including authorised representative agreements and drafting the terms and conditions for a junior ISA product
      • Advising on the implications of the Insurance Distribution Directive and interaction with the FCA Handbook for a dental business
      • Consumer credit advice for lenders and brokers, drafting and advising on regulated consumer credit agreements and advising on consumer credit disputes
      • Advising financial services companies on devising and implementing a best practice regulatory strategy for money laundering and data protection
      • Advising a charity on the mis-selling of a multimillion-pound hedging product and breach of the COBS rules
      • Advising on the setting up of a cross-border medtech fund and ensuring its ability to trade on an international exchange from a regulatory perspective

Competition

      • Seconded to and advising the Western Europe business unit of The Coca-Cola Company on UK and EU competition law matters, including European merger control rules, best practice training on anti-competitive behaviour, structural and commercial arrangements, and exclusivity and dominance in the UK and certain EU markets
      • Advising UK Government, Scottish Government, local authorities across England and major telecoms providers on UK state aid clearances, EU General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER) and wider competition law matters
      • Representing a national transportation and logistics group and several other smaller logistic businesses in pursuing claims for damages against several major truck manufacturers following findings by the European Commission on involvement in a price-fixing cartel and breaking EU antitrust rules
      • Advising a national managed services provider, who specialises in public healthcare contracts, in relation to the anti-competitive effect of the structure of the NHS’s supply chain contracts
      • Advising a leading international geospatial data and technology business on competition law compliance and training, dawn raids, merger issues, market dominance and definition
      • Advising medtech patent holders on competition law issues around pan-EU patent/IPR licensing and contractual arrangements, and the application of the Technology Transfer Block Exemption (TTBE) to certain product or technology markets
      • Advising a leading UK university with an international reputation for teaching and research excellence on a £multimillion IP commercialisation programme, including competition law, state aid and EU public procurement issues
      • Advising extensively on the state aid issues arising from the spin-out and sale of publicly-owned assets
      • Advising a university on the state aid issues arising from a £300 million major development project, including the application of the Market Economy Investor Principle
      • Advising a local authority on state aid compliance relating to the administration of various national and EU funding streams

Environmental

      • Defences against most regulatory bodies, including health and safety, environmental, food, planning, waste, trading standard and employment-related matters
      • Series of seminars/training and follow up advice to board level of large multisite (and multinational) organisations, such as Serco, Siemens TC, BAM Nuttall, Amcor, University of Bristol/West of England/Oxford/South Wales, Rail Company on corporate and individual accountability in health and safety and other relevant law, such as corporate manslaughter

Accolades

  • The Banking & Finance Team is ranked Band 2 by Chambers and Partners
  • The Banking & Finance Team is ranked Tier 2 in The Legal 500

Testimonials

“The Team is commercially astute and pragmatic.”

Aisha Wardell, Partner at Acuity Law

Aisha Wardell

Partner
 
declan goodwin

Declan Goodwin

Partner
 
Jenny Wilde

Jenny Wilde

Partner
 
Rachelle Sellek, Commercial & Technology Partner at Acuity Law

Rachelle Sellek

Partner
 
Ralph Lovesy, Partner at Acuity Law

Ralph Lovesy

Consultant
 

Richard Voke

Consultant Partner
 

Financial Services Regulation

We field experts in financial services regulation, particularly those impacting wholesale markets, including the Financial Services & Markets Act, the FCA Handbook, and UK onshored versions of MiFID II, the Benchmarks Regulation, SFTR, EMIR and the Market Abuse Regulation. Our experts have in-house credentials with major regulated entities, for whom they have defended regulatory investigations, as well as investigation and enforcement experience. Thanks to this, we have unique practical insight into the financial regulatory ecosystem and can offer unparalleled knowledge of trading venue rulebooks, including LME and ICE, as well as codes of practice such as the Precious Metals Code and the Baltic Code.

On the retail banking side, we are delighted to play host to dedicated legal professionals in consumer credit, regulated mortgage contracts, payment services, insurance intermediation and fintech products.

Environmental Regulation

We are also proud to have developed specialism in environmental law, and our clients are able to access skilled professionals with regulatory expertise in major environmental hazard legislation, environmental catastrophe prevention and environmental health and safety protocols.

Competition

Whether they are national or international, competition issues turn on the facts, circumstances and markets in which they emerge. Inevitably, this combination of factors tends to be complex and technically challenging.

What’s more, competition authorities are increasingly exercising their wide-ranging powers. We have seen a growth in investigations and challenges to joint ventures, mergers, market practices, cartels and other commercial arrangements; as well as sanctions for anti-competitive behaviour; and interventions to tackle failing markets through regulation and reform.

With company finances and reputation at risk from potential public and private enforcements, sanctions, substantial fines and disputes, competition law compliance has never been more critical.

We adopt a strategic, risk-based, practical approach to help you navigate the complexities of competition laws and regulation, defend your commercial interests and challenge anti-competitive practices.

We advise on:

  • Mergers and joint venture clearances
  • Trade arrangements and export controls
  • Structuring commercial arrangements, strategic alliances, collaborations and transactions
  • Abuse of dominance and anti-competitive conduct
  • Cartels, market investigations and dawn raids
  • Compliance policies, audits and training programmes
  • State aid
  • Competition disputes and litigation
  • Health and Social Care Regulation

    Regulators of health and social care practices are ever vigilant, and inspections, investigations and safeguarding allegations are on the rise.

    Our specialist expertise in the regulation of health and social care services enables us to support providers in their regulatory matters right across the sector. Our clients include care homes, domiciliary care services NHS hospitals, GP practices, adult social care services, children’s homes, private hospitals, dental practices and hair transplant clinics, alongside the professionals providing care within these settings.

    Our expertise includes:

    Challenges to inspection and regulatory outcomes
    Safeguarding matters
    First-Tier Tribunal (Care Standards) representation
    CQC prosecutions
    Regulatory due diligence during the sale or purchase of care services
    Professional disciplinary matters

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