Richard Hay

Richard is the firm’s Fintech lead and has considerable experience in advising on the financial structuring and regulatory aspects of innovative capital markets structures, products and systems.

He regularly advises investment banks, broker-dealers, market infrastructure providers and start-ups on the deployment of novel technologies to support new or existing business lines. He has particular experience of new product development in the context of market infrastructures, notably trading, clearing, payment and settlement systems. He has also advised numerous start-ups and buy-side institutions on the creation and issuance of novel instruments and investment structures.

He has advised extensively on structured securities, exchange-traded and OTC derivatives and clearing, including on the enforceability of netting, set-off and credit support provisions.

He was previously seconded to the Financial Markets Law Committee at the Bank of England and, prior to joining Linklaters, was an equity derivatives sales-trader at a major investment bank.

He is a CFA charterholder.

Work highlights

• a consortium of financial institutions and Clearmatics on the development of the Utility Settlement Coin (USC), an asset-backed digital cash instrument on blockchain for use within global institutional financial markets;
• on the establishment by a major investment bank of a digital platform for the issuance, trading and settlement of financial instruments using distributed ledger technology;
• on the structuring and regulatory analysis relating to the issuance of a number of tokenised financial instruments, by both established institutions and disruptors;
• a leading exchange on the design and implementation of its electronic platform for the dematerialised transfer of commodities;
• an international payment system on its settlement arrangements.

Richard is a member of the Fintech Scoping Forum of the Financial Markets Law Committee and was a part of its working group on the governing law and jurisdiction of distributed ledger technology. He is a regular speaker on the legal and regulatory aspects of blockchain and smart contracts, including at various OECD roundtables and initiatives.

Richard studied law at St. John’s College, University of Cambridge, and holds a master’s in law from Université Paris II (Panthéon-Assas) and a master’s in science in finance (with a major in quantitative finance) from Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi, Milan.

Richard speaks English, French, Italian and Spanish.