IFLR 1000
The Guide to the World's Leading Financial Law Firms

The financial regulatory department at Bingham is led jointly by Peter Bibby and Helen Marshall and the team has a strong focus on mandates related to the FSA.

In line with this, last year both partners were involved advising a financial institution over the FSA's investigations into payment protection insurance (PPI). Bibby has also been involved in advising several other (confidential) clients on FSA investigations.

The firm also advised the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) as it analysed the collapse of a number of investment product providers related to Lehman and Keydata. The FSCS needed to determine the scale of potential compensation claims arising from investors. The team also defended the FSCS in judicial review proceedings brought by over 200 independent financial advisors in regard to the FCSC's imposition of an interim levy.

Bingham McCutchen holds a unique place within the market, which is relatively unrivalled among its peers. The team acts almost exclusively for bondholders and peers hold the niche practice in high regard. "Bingham, I see them as now having a free run at the note holder work given the decline of Cadwalader," says one peer and another agrees: "Bingham's are in a class of their own, on the bond side."

This reputation and another strong list of mandates sees the firm retain its place in the second tier. "I think you have to put Bingham in tier two because of their work in that particular field," says another peer.

The most high profile mandate in this field saw a team led by practice co-head James Roome act for the committee of the senior noteholders in respect of the €1.8 billion restructuring of Wind Hellas through a pre-pack sale.

James Roome is a client favourite: "Came up with novel forms of restructuring and was aware of the markets and new developments," says one client. "They are technically superb. Very high knowledge of our business area."

Work related to Icelandic bank collapses continues to provide work for a number of firms and last year a team led by co-head Barry Russell acted for the holders of $24 billion bonds in Kaupthing, Glitnir and Landsbanki. This involved acting with the informal creditors committees of the three banks.

Russell also acted on a number of mandates related to private placement note holders, which was a big feature of the firm's work last year. In the biggest deal of this type, the team acted for approximately 40 institutions as note holders issued by Thompson as part of the French companies €2.8 billion debt to equity conversion. In a similar deal Russell again acted for noteholders as part of the €1.2 billion restructuring of the Quinn Group. Finally, the firm acted again for holders of notes issued by the two remaining divisions of the Connaught Group (Environment and Compliance) as part of their restructuring following administration.