Financial Service Regulation (non-contentious), Junior Associate

Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer is a world-leading global law firm, where our ambition is to help you achieve your goals. Exceptional client service and the pursuit of excellence are at our core. We invest in and care about our client relationships, which is why so many are longstanding. We enjoy breaking new ground, as we have for over 170 years. As a fully integrated transatlantic and transpacific firm, we are where you need us to be. Our footprint is extensive and committed across the world’s largest markets, key financial centres and major growth hubs.

Our global FSR practice helps our clients solve their most complex and sensitive national and international regulatory challenges (both proactive and reactive), both non-contentious and contentious. We have specialists across our network of offices in Europe, North America, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. Our expertise covers the full spectrum of regulation, including authorisations and approvals; regulatory change; the regulatory aspects of transactions or restructurings; governance; risk management and compliance; market conduct; complaints handling; financial crime; and enforcement and investigations.

The non-contentious part of the FSR practice (within our Corporate Division) specialises in generalist advisory and transactions/commercial projects work. The team advises banks (traditional and challenger), investment firms (including broker-dealers and insurance brokers), asset managers, market infrastructure providers (including CCPs and trading venues), Fintechs, private equity firms and other financial institutions on financial services law and regulation, including all major UK/EU regulatory regimes, including CRR/CRD, MiFID II, SMCR, MAR, EMIR, SSR, CSRD, PSD2, AIFMD etc.

The team regularly advises clients on their most strategic and challenging projects, including:

• structuring and authorisation of new businesses
• Group rationalisation and structuring
• corporate governance and senior management responsibility
• regulatory change and commercial projects (including outsourcing)
• new business and product structuring
• client documentation and other financial sector contracts
• BAU regulatory and compliance matters
• advising on emerging technology like digital assets, tokenisation and AI
• high-value and complex financial sector M&A and other transactions

The lawyers in the non-contentious part of this practice area work closely with their counterparts on the contentious side, sharing client work, business development and know-how.

Key responsibilities include advisory and transactional/commercial projects regulatory work; both UK domestic and international. Clients could be across many sectors of the FS industry, both wholesale and retail, including banks, payment services/e-money firms, interdealer brokers, asset managers, private equity firms, insurers, insurance intermediaries and energy sector clients. Non-contentious associates also have the rare and highly valuable opportunity of becoming involved in contentious work, to broaden their experience, if of interest.

Qualifications, skills and experience expected include approximately 1-2 years’ experience in financial services regulatory work, with experience of dealing with large, complex and multi-jurisdictional matters. Academic excellence is essential for all positions within Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, with at least a 2:1 degree (or equivalent). All applications should include full academic details including grades, subjects and transcripts where appropriate. Fluency in spoken and written English is required.

We are committed to attracting people from all backgrounds and creating a respectful and inclusive culture where everyone thrives. This is a key part of our Values-Human, Bold, and Outstanding.