Profile details
About Claire Harrop
Claire is a partner in our financial institutions group. She advises on financial services regulatory matters, both transactional and purely advisory. Claire is one of the co-founders of the firm’s global Fintech group and is the UK Head of Fintech at Freshfields.
Claire advises on a wide range of financial services regulatory matters: from stand-alone regulatory advice to regulatory aspects of public and private transactions to providing expert input on more contentious matters. Claire has particular expertise advising banks, financial market infrastructure, payment providers and private capital institutions.
Having studied physics as an undergraduate, Claire is keenly interested in developments in the Fintech space - in particular payments, cryptoassets (including CBDC), DLT, AI and the metaverse. She co-founded the Freshfields Fintech group in 2013 and is the firm's UK Head of Fintech.
Claire has been on secondment to Deutsche Bank, Visa Europe and the London Stock Exchange. She is one of the global relationship partners for UBS and Visa, and part of the relationship team of some of the firm's biggest clients.
Recent work
Recent work includes advising:
- UBS on its acquisition of Credit Suisse and subsequent integration, including the merger of UBS AG and Credit Suisse AG
- JP Morgan on:
- its acquisition of Nutmeg Saving and Investment
- its acquisition of a stake in Viva Wallet
- its acquisition of Global Shares
- London Stock Exchange on:
- its $27bn all share acquisition of Refinitiv and related sale of Borsa Italiana
- its defence of an unsolicited £32bn approach from HKSE
- its £21bn proposed merger with Deutsche Börse
- Visa on:
- the Payment Systems Regulator's market reviews into cross-border interchange fees and scheme and processing fees
- its investment in Form3
- development and governance of new payment products
- General Atlantic on its investments in Modulr, Partners Capital and Sustainable Development Capital
- Cinven on its investment in International Financial Group Limited
- AllFunds on its acquisition of a majority stake in MainStreet Partners
- Various global financial institutions and fintech companies on the implementation of MiFID 2, Brexit planning, recovery and resolution planning, potential uses of blockchain and new payment products
Qualifications
- The Queen's College, University of Oxford (Master of Physics)
- Oxford Brookes University (graduate diploma in law)
- BPP Law School, London (legal practice course)
- Solicitor, England and Wales