Financial Services Litigation & Investigations Group
Financial Services Litigation & Investigations Group
In the face of turmoil and uncertainty, the world's major financial institutions continue to choose our team to help them manage their business, litigation and reputational risks and thrive in the new economic and regulatory climate. To our clients we are much more than litigators - we are business partners who have a stake in their success.
Manuel Frey and Jane O’Brien Interviewed in Regulatory Compliance Watch Video
May 17, 2021
Corporate partner Manuel Frey and litigation partner Jane O’Brien participated in a video interview with Regulatory Compliance Watch. In the interview, Manuel and Jane discuss what steps advisers should take ahead of the transition away from LIBOR, which will affect derivatives, loans, bonds and mortgages.
Among other recommendations, Manuel suggests that advisors begin creating a team dedicated to the LIBOR cessation and to the development of a strategy for contractual remediation. “You should form a working group, internally, that includes both senior management and a wide variety of disciplines within your firm—legal, tax, accounting, operations, trading,” Manuel said. “You need to have the resources and expertise of the different areas within your firm to [develop] the roadmap and to be available to tackle the issues that will come up along the way.”
Firms that act early and smartly are likely to reduce the risk of legal challenges resulting from the end of LIBOR. “U.S. regulators are going to want to see that firms are taking this seriously, that they are not banking on another extension, that they are [assessing] the risks and also communicating with their investors and counterparties appropriately to mitigate whatever those risks might be,” Jane said. “If everyone is taking it seriously and is going through the preparedness steps that we’ve been discussing, then the likelihood of it being an enormous systemic disruption to the markets is much lower.”