Expertise
Our Financial Institutions Group has significant experience advising on the full spectrum of corporate re-organiastions. We were the first law firm in Ireland to advise on the use of Schemes of Arrangement to merge businesses involving multiple third party contracts and we also advised the Irish Government on Irish legislation to provide for Cross-Border Mergers.
Our lawyers advise a range of leading domestic and international financial institutions, (re)insurance undertakings and intermediaries on various corporate restructuring matters relating to domestic and cross-border reorganisations, amalgamations, equity restructurings, and related corporate governance projects. Our lawyers also have extensive industry experience of internal restructuring projects, having previously worked in the in-house legal teams of global financial institutions.
Our team has also advised on the redomiciliation of a number of large US corporates to Ireland and has advised global financial institutions operating in and from Ireland on a variety of strategically significant corporate transactions.
Our Team
The Financial Institutions Group have extensive experience in advising clients on the legal issues arising in corporate restructuring projects.
For example, we have advised on various court-sanctioned schemes of arrangement, including:
- IFG Group PLC as part of its £206 million recommended public takeover by Epiris LLP.
- Willis Towers Watson as part of its $30 billion merger with Aon, the largest M&A transaction globally in H1 2020.
- Michelin Group on a merger of its Irish captive insurer.
- Barclays Bank PLC in relation to all Irish aspects of its UK court-approved scheme of transfer of its EU / EEA banking business to Barclays Bank Ireland PLC.
- Philip Morris International in relation to the first ever insurance portfolio transfer by Companies Act Scheme of Arrangement, resulting in the consolidation of two captive re-insurance entities into one surviving entity.
In addition, our team has advised on a number of high-profile restructurings conducted by means of cross-border merger, including:
- BNY Mellon on a cross-border merger of an Irish regulated company into a Belgian registered bank, as part of an internal reorganisation of the BNY Mellon Group.
- Barclays on the transfer of its UK banking business into Ireland and the expansion of Barclays Bank Ireland plc as part of its Brexit planning strategy.
- QBE Group on the merger of its Irish, UK and Belgian reinsurance companies by way of a Cross-Border Merger.
- HSBC on the transfer of an Irish company into a French company by way of Cross-Border Merger.
- Multiple international financial institutions (including a number of significant global FinTech companies) on their post-Brexit corporate integration and alignment structuring in Ireland.