Reed Smith today announced the appointment of Chris Borg as a partner in the firm’s London office. Chris is a financial services regulatory expert with a leading reputation in commodity futures and energy trading. Like Brett Hillis, who joined Reed Smith as a partner last year, he joins from the Financial Markets and Regulatory group of SNR Denton.
Chris has a broad financial services practice and is well-known for his commodity futures and energy trading expertise. Unusually, he combines his broad financial regulatory practice with structured transactional work in financial and commodity markets, bringing transactional know-how to his regulatory advice. He represents banks, investment banks, commodity traders and brokers, oil majors, utilities, ETF/ETC issuers, fund managers, exchanges and trading platforms, clearing houses, market service providers and trade associations.
Chris’ appointment marks the eleventh new partner to join Reed Smith’s Energy and Natural Resources and Financial Industry Groups in London, over the last two years, as the firm continues to add to its substantial offering in financial services and commodities trading.
His arrival follows that of partners Brett Hillis, Stefan Schmitz, Gordon Bell, Peter Cassidy, Keith Hartley, Vincent Rowan, Siân Fellows and John Varholy and most recently partner Tamara Box, who joined the firm as Head of Structured Finance from Berwin Leighton Paisner.
Nola Beirne, vice chair of Reed Smith’s Financial Industry Group, commented:
“Chris’ extensive experience of financial services regulation and history of handling highly complex transactions will complement our regulatory practice across Europe. Chris will work closely with Reed Smith’s financial services regulatory partners, including Jacqui Hatfield, Brett Hillis and Rob Falkner, to provide financial service’s regulatory advice across the broad spectrum of the financial services industry. They will provide a substantial offering in financial services and commodities regulatory advice.
“Chris’ previous work in the commodity futures and energy trading markets has been truly impressive and his experience in these areas comes to us at a particularly timely moment, as commodities regulation is set to expand dramatically around the globe affecting financial institutions and commodity clients alike.”
Kyri Evagora, Co-Chair of Reed Smith’s Energy and Natural Resources Group, commented:
“As financial institutions continue to deepen their involvement in commodity markets and commodity market participants increase their activities in the financial markets, we continue to look to integrate and increase our offering our clients in these areas.
“We are committed to continued growth in both these sectors, which we view as increasingly linked. In the last year alone we’ve launched our global Energy and Natural Resources Group (appointing nine new partners) and have continued the expansion of our Financial Industry Group, most recently with the appointment of Tamara Box and her team.“
Chris Borg commented:
“Reed Smith is a natural home for a lawyer like me. It really understands the growing convergence of financial and commodity markets and has a clear commitment to those markets. As a result, it has an outstanding capability in trading, in physical and financial products, in contentious and non-contentious practice: from shipping at one end of the spectrum right through to financial futures, derivatives and structured finance at the other. That is unrivalled and a very exciting proposition for someone like me.”
ENDS
Note to Editors:
About Reed Smith’s Financial Industry Group
Reed Smith’s global Financial Industry Group comprises more than 240 transactional, regulatory and litigation lawyers organised on a cross-border and cross-discipline basis. The team advises on transactional finance covering the full spectrum of financial products, litigation, restructuring and bankruptcy, bank and investment business regulation, consumer compliance and investment management. As well as being experts in their areas of law, FIG lawyers have a particular understanding of the commercial and regulatory challenges currently facing the financial services industry, the financial markets and financial products, enabling them to evaluate risks and to anticipate and identify the legal support needed by clients.
About Reed Smith’s Energy & Natural Resources Group
Reed Smith’s Energy & Natural Resources Group is multidisciplinary, combining regulatory, transactional and litigation disciplines. Its members are located in all of Reed Smith's offices in the UK, the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, providing an exceptional global platform for businesses engaged in the extraction, production, distribution or financing of energy and natural resources projects, products and services anywhere in the world.
About Reed Smith
Reed Smith is a global law firm, with 23 offices and more than 1,600 lawyers in offices across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the United States.
For further information please visit www.reedsmith.com or contact Jeyda Star on +44 (0)20 3116 2571.