Pauline Ashall

Pauline is widely regarded as a leading lawyer with specialist knowledge of derivatives. She advises clients on both securitised and OTC derivatives, with an emphasis on equities, funds and commodities. She is particularly experienced in the areas of prime brokerage, collateral management, repos and stock lending. She also advises on all aspects of the European Markets Infrastructure Regulation and other EU regulations, including MiFiD II, as they relate to derivatives.

Pauline was previously a regulatory specialist, advising banks, securities houses and other financial intermediaries on regulation of their businesses in the UK and European Union.

Pauline established the firm’s financial markets practice in Hong Kong. She was based in the firm’s Hong Kong office between 1996 and 2002.

Work Highlights

Pauline took a major role in the legal work arising from the administration of Lehman Brothers International (Europe) from 2008-2016. This involved the close-out of derivative positions, achieving settlement of claims from creditors and recovery of payments from debtors, and the return of client assets.

Pauline was seconded on a part-time basis to HM Treasury for eight months from November 2016, analysing EU financial services legislation to identify changes needed to onshore it as UK domestic law.

Pauline has been a member of several industry bodies and associations, including the Standards & Guidance Committee of the Law Society of England and Wales, of the regulatory sub-committee of the City of London Law Society, and the Securities Law Committee of the Hong Kong Law Society (of which she was chairman). She participated in discussions on the drafting of the legislation in the UK in 1986 that introduced a broad-ranging regulatory framework for the financial markets in the UK for the first time. In Hong Kong, Pauline represented a group of 10 international banks on the Securities and Futures Ordinance that constituted a major overhaul of the Hong Kong financial markets regulatory regime.

Over the years, she has contributed many articles to a range of publications. These include “Global Margin Requirements for Non-cleared Derivatives: important differences in the margins” in Futures & Derivatives Law, June 2016, with Edward Ivey, Motoyasu Fujita and I-Ping Soong.

Pauline studied law at Somerville College, University of Oxford, where she was also a lecturer in law between 1982 and 1984.