Specialist team:
Financial Services
Experience:
Mervyn has advised on financial services matters since 1981. He has extensive experience of advising life and general insurers on their day to day operations, on regulatory issues, drafting industry documentation and effecting transactions and Court schemes of transfer. He has wide experience of advising fund managers and forming, advising on and restructuring investment funds.
Significant recent work includes the demutualisation of Scottish Life, where he advised the Board of Scottish Life as lead partner, being lead adviser on the reorganisation of the life business of Ecclesiastical Insurance Group by an insurance business transfer scheme and advising on, and drafting, the solvent scheme of arrangement for the Global London Markets Pool.
Mervyn joined Speechly Bircham in 1981, became a partner in 1982, managing partner from 1991-1995 and senior partner from 2001-2004. He completed his training at Freshfields and was admitted in 1978, having previously qualified in South Africa. He obtained his LLB from Wits University in Johannesburg and his LLM from London University.
Mervyn is recognised as a legal expert by Legal Experts 2009 and a leading individual in Chambers UK 2010. He has been a member of the CBI Company Law Panel, Commercial Law Panel and the Smaller Firms’ Council, and has been a guest lecturer in company law at Southampton University. He is a director of Shires Income plc, a listed investment trust, a director of Ecclesiastical Insurance group and a trustee of the English National Opera Trust.