Albert Weatherill
Counsel
Norton Rose Fulbright LLP
Related services and key industries
Biography
Albert Weatherill is a senior associate in the firm's financial services group, a member of the global FinTech practice, and the global lead for the firm's payments group. He has a broad range of experience in advising banks, investment managers, retail and institutional brokers, US broker-dealers, financial sponsors, market makers and high-frequency traders, technology companies, exchanges, payment services providers and electronic money institutions in relation to a wide range of domestic and cross-border regulatory matters. Albert was shortlisted for the Rising Star Innovation Award at the Legal Innovation Awards 2020 and for the Rising Star Award at the British Legal Awards 2020. He is ranked as an "Associate to watch" in Chambers and Partners 2021 for financial services: non-contentious, where he is recognized as a "highly regarded" practitioner, with clients describing him as "very conscientious, diligent and thorough".
Albert's diverse practice involves advising clients on regulatory compliance, regulatory change, governance, risk management, Brexit, market abuse, trading, clearing and settlement, lending, conduct, prudential regulation, client money and custody. In particular, he focuses on the design, development and regulation of innovative financial services and products, particularly across mobile and digital payments, digital assets issuance and trading, cryptoassets market infrastructure, banking as a service, consumer and corporate lending, blockchain and distributed ledger technology. He authored the UK chapter of Global Legal Insight's Blockchain & Regulation 2019, is a member of the Tech London Advocates Blockchain Legal and Regulatory Working Group, and regularly contributes to publications on FinTech matters.
In addition to his broad advisory practice, Albert has extensive experience of acting on mergers and acquisitions, private and public capital market transactions, and restructurings involving financial institutions. He has represented clients on a range of complex and multi-jurisdictional transactions, including Advent International, Bain Capital, General Atlantic, Barclays, HSBC, KKR, Starling Bank, Royal Bank of Canada, The Northern Trust Corporation, Saxo Bank and Virtu Financial.
Prior to qualification, Albert was seconded to the trade association of the UK payments industry, gaining experience of working closely with the UK's payment schemes, banks and payment infrastructure providers.
Professional experience
Collapse all- Solicitor, qualified in England & Wales
- Solicitor, qualified in Ireland
Advising:
- UK Finance and a consortium of seven banks on the design, launch and implementation of the UK Government's Bounce Back Loan Scheme.
- Revolut on the launch of its commission-free share trading service.
- A leading financial institution on its proposed membership in Facebook's Libra Network.
- Ripple on its ground-breaking RippleNet payment system.
- Fidelity Digital Assets on the launch of its EMEA cryptoassets custody and trading business.
- Lendingblock on the design and launch one of the market's first cryptoassets lending platforms.
- Crypto Facilities on structuring and launching its cryptoassets MTF.
- CoinShares on regulatory matters.
- Motto Technologies on the launch of its cryptoassets trading application.
- TradeIX on regulatory matters related to its blockchain-based trade finance platform Marco Polo.
- Northern Trust on its commercial partnership with IBM to deploy the first blockchain use case in the private equity industry.
- The Web 3.0 Technologies Foundation on its US$150 million initial coin offering to fund the development of the Polkadot protocol.
- Starling Bank on its recent funding rounds totalling £160 million.
- Virtu Financial, Inc. on its US$1 billion acquisition of Investment Technology Group, Inc.
- Bain Capital on its £1.2 billion acquisition of the eSure insurance group.
- Pay.UK on its consolidation on the merger of the Bacs, Faster Payments and Cheque and Credit Clearing Company payment schemes.
- Saxo Bank on the sale of a majority stake to the Geely Group.
- KKR on its acquisition of a majority stake in heidelpay; and on its global reorganization and conversion of its NYSE-listed partnership vehicle to a corporation.
- English
News
Norton Rose Fulbright advises BMO Financial Group on its £615 million sale of EMEA asset management business to Ameriprise Financial
November 11, 2021
Norton Rose Fulbright advises UK Finance and banking consortium on launch of Bounce Back Loan Scheme
May 14, 2020
Norton Rose Fulbright advises Global Parametrics on natural catastrophe fund
December 18, 2019
Knowledge
EBA publishes final guidelines on the limited network exclusion under the PSD2
Blog | April 14, 2022
Mobile Initiated SEPA (Instant) Credit Transfer Payments and Technical Interoperability Guidance
Blog | April 14, 2022
UK payments regulation review
Blog | April 14, 2022
Notice to all FCA regulated firms with exposure to cryptoassets
Blog | April 12, 2022