Derivatives and Trading

Our market-leading buy-side derivatives and trading practice provides expert advice and solutions on every aspect of trading derivatives and other financial products, as well as related services like prime brokerage. We help our clients navigate the complexities of trading documentation alongside their own commercial requirements, all within an ever-changing regulatory landscape.

Trading and relationship agreements

We advise on the full suite of trading and counterparty relationship agreements (including prime brokerage agreements, ISDAs, GMRAs, GMSLAs, OTC derivatives clearing documentation and ETD documentation). We can handle the entire process for you, from first drafts through to negotiations with the counterparty, and finally on to arranging execution and storage of the signed documentation in our online Deal Room. Alternatively, we can provide ad-hoc advice or a more ‘behind the scenes’ role to assist you in your negotiations with counterparties.

Our breadth of experience and market view enables us to offer pragmatic client specific advice about what is realistically achievable in a negotiation - making for a more efficient, streamlined process. We understand the importance of getting the deal done.

Prime Brokerage

We have unrivalled experience negotiating prime brokerage arrangements across the street. We also advise on synthetic prime brokerage and FX prime brokerage (FXPB).

We can help you with all aspects of prime brokerage arrangements, including advice on CASS/client money protections, AIFMD compliant arrangements (including custodian discharge of liability) and lock-ups.

Whether you are launching a new fund and establishing a PB relationship for the first time, adding an additional PB, or revisiting your existing PB arrangements (e.g. renegotiation of terms / restructures), we have the experience to assist you.

Derivatives, Repo, Securities Lending and Custody

We are experts at advising on and negotiating key derivatives documentation, covering OTC derivatives, cleared OTC derivatives and exchange-traded derivatives (ETD), as well as associated documentation such as delegated reporting agreements.
We have a wealth of experience negotiating GMRAs (repos) and GMSLAs (securities lending), including complex structures and tri-party arrangements.

We offer a market-leading service to clients looking to invest and safekeep their assets in the global financial markets and regularly negotiate global custody agreements with the largest global custodians. We also assist clients with the establishment of stock lending and repo lines from custodied asset portfolios, as well as providing regulatory advice on client money and assets (CASS) and CSDR.

Client types

We act for a range of client types, including:

• UK, EU and US asset managers, from start-up or spin outs to established managers
• Hedge funds, mutual funds, regulated funds, UCITS, NURS and QIS
• Institutional managers, pension schemes, insurers
• Institutional investors, sovereigns, sovereign wealth funds, private equity and infrastructure funds, family offices
• Credit institutions and investment firms (including challenger banks)
• Major corporates (and corporate treasurers)

Bespoke Transactions

We also advise on a range of bespoke transactions across all asset classes, including equities, commodities, credit, FX, inflation, interest rate, property index, digital assets, repo and securities lending. Recent examples include:

• deal contingent FX forwards
• funded / unfunded TRS
• structured repo
• structured finance transactions including derivatives

Regulation

We advise on all aspects of derivatives and trading regulation, including EMIR, MiFID/MiFIR, BMR, CSDR, FSMA & Handbooks, SFDR, AIFMD and UCITS. We closely monitor the latest legal and regulatory developments and are active members of industry association working groups in key areas (e.g. EMIR 3.0). We can also help you audit EMIR and SFTR compliance.

Our online subscription service Netting + Collateral Reviewer helps clients comply with their regulatory obligations under EMIR (the EMIR margin rules require an independent legal review of the enforceability of netting and collateral agreements).

Efficiencies

We help a number of clients produce their own preferred versions of trading documentation such as ISDAs, GMRAs and GMSLAs, which is beneficial for risk management and efficiency. We are very experienced at setting up umbrella documentation for asset managers seeking consistency across the agreements entered into by the funds they manage, across various jurisdictions and fund types.

For other documentation such as PBAs we produce term sheets for clients, setting out their key asks in a user friendly table format – this focuses attention on important commercial points at the outset of a negotiation, reducing the overall number of turns of an agreement.

We assist clients with the development of their own training programmes for new joiners. We also create default management play-books/close-out guides for a range of product types.