Meet Rachel: Ogier's new global head of Regulatory

Rachel Cropper-Mawer recently joined Ogier as global head of Regulatory as the firm expands its services to meet client needs.

She leads Ogier’s regulatory legal offering across all its international locations, bringing together key regulatory lawyers and working closely with regulatory consultants in Ogier Regulatory Consulting.

Providing regulatory advice has become an integral and fast-growing part of Ogier's services. Rachel's addition to the team signals the next phase in Ogier's continued expansion of its regulatory expertise.

Ogier's growth in this area reflects a new era of fast-paced regulatory change and increasingly active regulatory bodies, with clients across all Ogier's services lines more often requiring bespoke, often cross-border, regulatory assistance.

To better understand the significance of Rachel's appointment, here she explains her regulatory background, her vision for Ogier's Regulatory services across our jurisdictions and the current regulatory landscape across the globe.

Q&A with Ogier's global head of Regulatory, Rachel Cropper-Mawer

What is so "hot" about regulatory right now?

Global regulation is on the rise. It presents complex questions for our clients, and this makes it an exciting and challenging area of law. It straddles many subject areas from financial regulation, through to sanctions, anti-money laundering and anti-bribery and corruption, as well as environmental, social and governance (ESG).

In addition, global accountability is also on the rise, one might say exponentially, which means that increasingly our clients are undertaking internal investigations and facing regulatory scrutiny. In today's world our clients need to know the legal answers, certainly, but also the practical solutions. They need help to manage a crisis and assist with day-to-day implementation too.

What are the biggest regulatory challenges for global companies?

We are seeing an unprecedented volume of regulation and more legislation, which is pushing policing of financial and corporate crime onto businesses, all of which require increasingly detailed compliance and reporting.

The pace of change is also fast, particularly in areas of risk such as anti-money laundering (AML), cyber and ESG. In respect of financial crime, a lot of the regulatory change is driven by the USA - having said that, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU policy writing body, is fast catching up. ESMA is responsible for setting the EU strategy, drafting overarching regulations and coordinating measures taken by member State securities supervisors, and now there is talk of ESMA taking on the power to directly regulate and sanction entities across the EU. This would tackle the regulatory arbitrage which has arisen between states that do and do not enforce EU sanctions and financial regulations.

In the meantime, the offshore jurisdictions are grappling increasing levels of extra territorial legislation arising outside their territories and impacting their markets, and ensuring that they align to the key principles of financial crime risk management, and being monitored by MONEYVAL and global bodies such as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

What is your regulatory background and how has it prepared you for this role?

I was co-chair of the Regulatory and Investigations practice at a very large global firm, a practice we built over three years. Prior to that I was in-house as a senior manager at BP plc, managing risks in Africa and the Middle East, and the Chief Risk and Compliance Officer at Willis (International) Insurance Broker – now Willis Towers Watson.

This role at Ogier combines those elements of my experience from compliance and risk management, through to internal and regulatory investigations and litigation. From my time at BP and Willis I learned a lot about managing cross-border and local issues for high-profile businesses.

Dealing with different regulators and priorities is experience that plays well into this role as we build and showcase our pan-island and offshore expertise.

What about this role excited you to be part of Ogier?

Why is Ogier such an exciting prospect? As well as acting for the leading companies and entities in all our jurisdictions, Ogier’s corporate and fiduciary business, Ogier Global, assists fund clients with a full fund administration service. Taking these two opportunities together, Ogier has recognised, ahead of many competitors, the importance of regulatory and investigations expertise to our clients in supporting the work we already do in that field. Creating a standalone practice in Ogier Regulatory Consulting, as well as building out the legal offering, means practical compliance solutions for our clients as well as regulatory investigation support.

How do you plan to grow the Regulatory sector at Ogier?

Our ambition is to ensure that the incredible breadth and depth of regulatory contentious and non-contentious expertise at Ogier is brought into focus for our clients and future clients. Ogier is a collaborative firm that prides itself on its culture, as well as recruiting and developing experts. We will strive to use the firm-wide experience gleaned through hindsight, along with our knowledge of the markets and our clients, to bring foresight to the problems faced by them today. We continue to grow our links to the regulators so we can give real insights to our clients and provide answers to difficult questions that arise.

Read more about Rachel in her profile.

How Ogier can help

Ogier provides global regulatory services to institutional clients in numerous sectors of the financial services industry including banking, insurance, securities investment business, corporate administration or investment funds. Ogier's lawyers are also specialists in their applicable sectors, rather than regulatory generalists.

Learn more about our regulatory offering.

About Ogier

Ogier is a professional services firm with the knowledge and expertise to handle the most demanding and complex transactions and provide expert, efficient and cost-effective services to all our clients. We regularly win awards for the quality of our client service, our work and our people.

Disclaimer

This client briefing has been prepared for clients and professional associates of Ogier. The information and expressions of opinion which it contains are not intended to be a comprehensive study or to provide legal advice and should not be treated as a substitute for specific advice concerning individual situations.

Regulatory information can be found under Legal Notice