Practices

Derivatives

McCann FitzGerald’s derivatives team is innovative, responsive and focussed on client needs. The team’s transactional and advisory work encompasses all categories of derivative and structured finance instruments and arrangements and it works closely with the firm’s market-leading financial regulatory, debt capital markets, tax and dispute resolution teams to provide fully integrated solutions to clients’ requirements and guide clients through the changing regulatory landscape. Our pro-active approach to market developments, and role as Irish counsel to relevant industry bodies, enables the team to advise on all aspects of the market from product development through completion of individual transactions and beyond, including management of the regulatory environment, risk management requirements and disputes.

Our expertise:

The team’s expertise extends across OTC, exchange-traded and securitised derivatives in all asset classes, repos, securities lending, related collateral arrangements and the regulatory environment within which they are transacted. The team advises a wide range of buy-side and sell-side market participants including banks, prime brokers, dealers, investment funds, insurance companies, pension funds and corporates. It also advises clearing houses, exchanges and other market participants on issues relating to clearing, settlement and custody. Recently it has been heavily involved in assisting clients with EMIR compliance issues.

‘The firm is also prolific in DCM, structured products and derivatives.’

The Legal 500, 2023

‘Has a noteworthy debt securities and structured finance practice, acting for both borrowers and domestic banks, with particular expertise in OTC and exchange-traded derivatives.’

Chambers 2019

Key areas:

Transactional work, including developing and negotiating documents and the development of innovative new products.
Advising on the regulatory implications, including pursuant to EMIR, SFTR and MIFID II, and Brexit implications, of the transaction of all types of derivatives, repos, securities lending and related products and arrangements and on related exchanges and clearing systems and assisting with all related regulatory compliance issues.
Opining on the enforceability of close-out netting and collateral arrangements established pursuant to industry standard documentation (see key highlights below).
Advising market participants on close-out netting, set-off and collateral issues relating to agreements, entities and/or transaction types not within scope of industry opinions, facilitating positive netting and collateral conclusions.
Undertaking legal and documentation reviews and assisting in developing risk management strategies.
Establishing procedures and documentation to manage counterparty defaults and acting on behalf of creditors in connection with defaults.

Key highlights include:

We are long-standing Irish counsel to industry bodies such as ISDA, ICMA, ISLA and the German banking associations, providing opinions in respect of their industry documentation.

We have worked on key industry projects such as all Irish aspects of ISDA’s EU law documentation initiative.

We are a Silver Tier ISDA Create Certified Partner, enabling us to support clients who wish to unlock the efficiencies and advantages offered by the ISDA Create platform for the electronic generation, negotiation and execution of derivatives documentation and related data capture.