Overview
Sophia is a Counsel Knowledge Lawyer at Linklaters with almost twenty years' experience in financial structuring. Over the past decade, her focus has been on supporting digitalisation and innovation in financial markets and payments.
In this area, she advises on complex and evolving areas of law and regulation, delivers know-how and training, and is actively engaged in industry-wide digitalisation initiatives. She has led industry responses to legal and regulatory consultations, coordinated the development of international contractual standards and produced thought leadership on key topics. She has also published articles on topics such as digital bonds, stablecoins, smart contracts and AI in the Capital Markets Law Journal, the Butterworths Journal of International Banking and Financial Law and Artificial Intelligence Law and Regulation (Edward Elgar Publishing).
Experience
- Digital financial market infrastructure structuring: advising on the structuring of a wide range of tokenisation platforms, including the Euroclear DFMI platform, the HSBC Orion platform (in connection with the UK Digital Securities Sandbox and HM Treasury's inaugural digital gilt issuance), the UK Finance GBTD initiative and other high-profile shared-ledger initiatives.
- Digital asset strategy and policy: advising and training banks, financial institutions and regulators on their policy approaches to digital assets, including legal and risk considerations, the regulatory perimeter and the prudential treatment of digital asset exposures.
- Shaping evolving law and regulation: leading industry responses to legal and regulatory consultations on cryptoassets, stablecoins and other fintech topics on behalf of several trade associations (including UK Finance, ISDA and AFME), and working closely with the Law Commission and the UK Jurisdiction Taskforce to clarify complex areas of English law concerning digital assets.
- Shaping contractual standards: advising ISDA on the development of industry templates for digital asset derivatives, including the ISDA Digital Asset Definitions and Tokenised Collateral Model Provisions for VM CSA.
Education, Qualifications and Languages
Sophia studied law at University College London and then at the College of Law, London.
Admissions