Geoffrey Wynne is head of the Trade & Export Finance Group and Sullivan's London office. He has extensive experience in banking and finance, specifically corporate and international finance, trade and structured trade and commodity finance, electronic bank and digitizing trade finance, structured finance, asset and project finance, syndicated lending, equipment leasing, workouts and financing restructuring, leveraged and management buy-outs and general commercial matters.

Recognised as one of the leading trade finance lawyers globally, Geoff has advised extensively many of the major trade finance banks around the world on trade and commodity transactions in virtually every emerging market including CIS, Far East, India, Africa and Latin America. He has worked on many structured trade transactions covering such diverse commodities as oil, nickel, steel, tobacco, cocoa and coffee.

The team which Geoff leads has won numerous awards and recognition for its work in the Trade and Export Finance industry. In 2021 the firm was named ‘GTR Law Firm of the Year for Innovation’, recognizing the role the firm played during the initial stages of the pandemic in 2020 helping to ensure the trade finance industry was able to move to a secure digital environment from a legal perspective.

 

Representative Client Work

  • Acted as English law legal advisers to a number of renowned trade finance institutions, facilitated by the International Trade & Forfaiting Association (ITFA), in the design and release of the first rulebook for Marco Polo’s Payment Commitment Trade Finance solution
  • Advised on the launch of the ITFA Unfunded Master Risk Participation Agreement and associated user guidelines, and provided the associated Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR) compliant legal opinion
  • Advised ITFA on its guide to accounting and legal issues under International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) 9 for the trade receivables and supply chain finance industry
  • Advised ITFA as to whether promissory notes and bills of exchange under the Bills of Exchange Act 1882 could exist in a purely electronic environment
  • Advised international financial services association BAFT (the Bankers Association for Finance & Trade), together with ITFA, on the updated English law and New York law Master Participation Agreements associated usage guidelines
  • Advised bank and other financial institution clients on the use of insurance as a means of risk transfer across a variety of transactions including project finance, receivables finance trade and commodity and export credit finance
  • Adviser to the Insurance Committee of ITFA in connection with various market-led insurance related matters
  • Advised on a project to allow Artificial Intelligence to help prepare documentation for commodity trade finance
  • Advised in connection with the pilot stage of a new receivables financing product through which the client would make early repayments of invoices issued to pre-approved buyers
  • Advised on the creation and documentation of a financing structure for an oil major involving the payment and purchase of promissory notes issued by the client
  • Advised on numerous pre-export, pre-shipment and warehouse financings across emerging markets
  • Advised on the establishment of an orphan SPV in the Cayman Islands for the purpose of raising loan financing from a syndicate of lenders
  • Advised on the structuring and documentation of a major Blockchain client in relation to their online receivables purchase platform

Bar & Court Admissions

  • Solicitor, Senior Courts of England and Wales

Professional Qualifications

  • Solicitor, Senior Courts of England and Wales, 1975 

Education

  • The College of Law
  • Christ Church, Oxford University, BA (Jurisprudence)

Awards & Honors

  • Best Lawyers in the United Kingdom, Commodities (2009-2022)
  • Chambers UK, Commodities: Trade Finance (UK-wide) (2013-2021)
  • The Legal 500 UK - "Hall of Fame" (2018, 2020-2021)
  • The Legal 500 UK, Trade Finance - London - "Leading Individual" (2014-2021)
  • IFLR1000, Highly-Regarded, Bank Lending: Lender Side (2017-2021)
  • Lexology "Client Choice" — Banking (2019, 2021)
  • Trade & Forfaiting Review Awards, Fellowship Award (2017)

Seminars & Presentations

Practices

Industries

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