Clare Burman

Clare is a Legal Director in the Financial Institutions Group. She focusses on helping clients to obtain the necessary regulatory consents, authorisations and registrations in order to acquire and operate regulated businesses and launch compliant products in the UK.

With a background in acquisitions, banking and payments, Clare established and leads our busy regulatory M&A team. Unusually, she has both a strong professional services regulatory practice, alongside more traditional financial services M&A. Her work involves interacting with regulators and providing pragmatic advice to clients on the strategic, structuring, and other regulatory aspects of acquisitions, disposals, reorganisations, financings, and applications for permissions, including:

• advising on the requirements of the FCA, PRA, ICAEW, ACCA, SRA and CLC when regulated businesses are being bought, sold, restructured or refinanced
• leading regulatory change in control applications, and advising on the related notifications and filings to regulators
• advising on the contractual and other provisions needed in acquisition, governance and investment documents
• recommending compliant ownership and governance structures for regulated businesses, and
• advising on the process and consequences of becoming FCA authorised.

Clare has successfully guided a wide range of clients through the process of buying, selling, reorganising, refinancing or launching regulated businesses, including major investment firms, private equity houses, management teams, trade buyers, international retailers, family offices, global technology businesses and the regulated firms themselves.

Helping you succeed in tomorrow's world

On the face of it, regulation can seem daunting, dull, or both: acronyms abound and dry regulatory terms do not raise the pulse. However, regulation does not exist in a vacuum, and it is the intersection between regulation and real life that I find fascinating.

In authorisation and change in control applications, I enjoy working with clients to understand their structures, business models, and the drivers for their transaction or product launch. This helps me to present information to the regulators with clarity and get the best results for my clients.

Often there can be a tension between financial services legislation and other regulations; the advice I give is tailored to my client's business model and environment. For example, I work closely with OC's workforce solutions specialists when advising platform businesses in the flexible workforce sector to ensure that their payroll offerings also comply with recruitment regulations and employment tax rules.

This holistic, collaborative approach to helping clients is what I enjoy most about being a financial and professional services lawyer.