Paul Watkins, FMLT’s Principal, also acts as a consultant working with investment banks, analysing swaps and repo/stock lending agreements, to create systems to allow banks to calculate potential outflows.

Previously Paul spent his career working with exchanges and clearing houses in a variety of in-house legal roles:

  • Post-trade at London Stock Exchange
  • Head of Membership and Legal at the International Petroleum Exchange (before it became part of ICE)
  • Legal Counsel at European Repo Exchange
  • Lawyer at Bourse de Paris/MATIF, Clearnet and Euronext
  • Director: Legal at LCH

Career highlights include

  • The transition of settlement away from LSE to Crest
  • Transition from floor trading to electronic trading at IPE, with the introduction of Natural Gas futures
  • Merger of the Dutch, Belgian and French CCPs at Clearnet
  • Managing the legal aspects of the defaults of Lehmans and MF Global
  • Drafting the rulebook for derivatives for LCH’s EMIR authorisation application
  • Analysis of Listed and OTC Clearing Agreements for Tier-1 bank, and ratings triggers for securitisation hedge swaps
  • Brexit migration agreement analysis for Tier-1 bank
  • Clearing projects at Tier-1 bank, including
    • Migration to RFRs for price alignment interest
    • LCH SwapAgent migration
    • IAS 32 analysis of clearing terms
    • Analysis of Eurex clearing terms for OTC and listed products