Legal Counsel

Reporting to the General Counsel, the Legal Counsel’s primary focus is to provide legal support to the Heads of Legal in the UK and Spain. However, the Monex legal department functions with a global approach, with all members required to provide legal support to all group companies. Monex group companies are currently located in Europe, North America, and Asia. The Legal Counsel will work closely with senior management, Finance, HR, Compliance, Sales, Credit Risk, and Treasury teams, as well as external counsel, to deliver strategic initiatives and day-to-day legal services.

Key Responsibilities & Accountabilities

• Commercial Matters: Drafting, negotiating and reviewing terms and conditions for foreign exchange contracts, referral contracts, amendment agreements, novation agreements and general commercial contracts. Drafting, negotiating and reviewing contracts within the standard ISDA suite of documentation for a variety of entity types, including institutional/ agency/ umbrella structures and related documentation, and credit support documents, with client counterparties and liquidity providers. Drafting, negotiating and reviewing Credit documentation such as margin agreements and client guarantees. Facilitating efficient and business focused solutions for the business when faced with commercial problems and assisting with providing a superior client experience, within the permissible legal framework.
• Corporate Matters: Assisting corporate reorganisations, and corporate secretarial duties such as corporate filings, appointment and resignation of directors, updating the group structure chart, organising and attending board meetings. Assisting in liaising with regulatory bodies. Managing KYC requirements with our liquidity providers and vendors. Leading on special projects that require legal input such as real estate matters, lease negotiation, IT and infrastructure changes and new vendor assessments. Assisting on data protection, information security and privacy related matters. Assisting on IP and trademark matters.
• General Matters: Creating templates and workflows to drive efficiencies and reduce internal resource spend. Identifying areas of legal risk or regulatory requirements and provide solutions. Drafting legal notices and letters for ad-hoc matters including terminations. Collating signatures and arranging for execution of documents within the authorised signatory framework. Assisting in the creation of know-how, drafting guidance and playbooks on specialist legal subject matters and provide internal training. Liaising with law firms and external suppliers. Legal research. Maintaining document archives and electronic records. Other related tasks and matters, including administrative where required.

Required Business Knowledge / Technical Skills:

• Qualified solicitor in England & Wales with training completed at a reputable private practice law firm, regulator or in-house program.
• Minimum 4 years post qualification experience.
• Strong experience working within an in-house legal function of a bank, regulator, financial services firm or in a private corporate commercial legal practice.
• Good working knowledge of relevant UK and EU laws and regulations including MiFID, EMIR, FSMA, GDPR, the Companies Acts, and EU equivalents.
• An interest and strength in corporate governance.
• Good knowledge of corporate and company law, with experience in company secretarial responsibilities.
• Sound legal drafting skills.

Desirable:

• International legal experience either through education, training or employment.
• Preference given to EU legal experience.
• Experience of negotiating industry standard trading agreements and ancillary agreements, especially the ISDA Master Agreement and related agreements, across a variety of counterparty types.
• An interest and strength in intellectual property.
• Facility in the Spanish language.