Duncan Black specialises in contentious
financial services matters and FSA
regulatory enforcement. The focus of his practice is
avoiding/resolving regulatory problems (including FSA, SEC),
disputes and risk assessment. Much of his experience is in
alternative asset management (particularly hedge funds) often
dealing with problems for which there is little or no
precedent.
He has defended individual and corporate
clients in numerous FSA enquiries covering, for example, market
manipulation, insider dealing, oversight, systems and controls. He
handles the UK end of SEC enquiries and litigation.
Disputes have covered:
- arbitration over the exercise of a ‘put’
option in a VC-type investment by an emerging markets fund
- litigation and regulatory liability of an
asset manager for acts of its administrator; liability of a non-FSA
regulated entity for ‘arranging’ under FSMA and the commercial
consequences of this
- liability of a CDO manager for inclusion of
ineligible assets; civil and regulatory liability of asset managers
for ‘error’ trades
- dealing with ‘bad leavers’ (setting up in
competition with their former employers, taking confidential
information and passing off track record and investment strategies
as their own)
- enforceability of side letters in hedge
funds
- mortgage securitisations and servicing
- cross-liability issues between sub-funds in
offshore master-feeder structures
- litigation risk arising from fund
wind-down
- information technology disputes arising in
the financial services sector
- ‘shareholder activism’ strategies in UK and
abroad
- tax litigation surrounding offshore
trusts
- risk assessments on setting up new fund
structures and platforms
- contested valuation of a departing fund
manager’s equity in the management company
- money laundering
Duncan was co-author of ‘Enforcement
of a Judgment’ (Sweet & Maxwell 1997) and contributed
to ‘Law and Regulation of Investment Management’ (Sweet
& Maxwell 2004). He also regularly speaks at
finance-related conferences.