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, bank mergers, acquisitions, conversions and restructurings, trade and structured trade and commodity finance, structured finance, asset and project finance, syndicated lending, equipment leasing, workouts and financing restructuring, leveraged and management buy-outs and general commercial matters.

Geoff is one of the leading trade finance lawyers and 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.

 

Representative Client Work

  • Advised over a number of years the lead arrangers to the annual Ghana Cocoa Board cocoa crop financing. The annual value of the financing has been in excess of $1 billion and up to $2 billion
  • Advised lenders in a pre export financing to Creativ Group in Ukraine
  • Advised a leading UK bank on its standard form trade finance documents
  • Advised different lenders in import facilities for crude oil and refined products into Ghana
  • Advised a leading UK bank on queries relating to letters of credit and other trade instruments on a virtual secondment basis and provided a help desk for small queries to be used by telephone and email
  • Advised a major US bank on a $1 billion letter of credit to be used in an acquisition of a Brazilian oil company and then on subsequent financings involving those letter of credit proceeds
  • Advised a major US bank on a financing to a European bank of its trade finance portfolio of loans

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

  • Lexology "Client Choice" — Banking (2019)
  • Legal 500 UK - "Hall of Fame" (2018, 2020)
  • Trade & Forfaiting Review Awards, Fellowship Award (2017)
  • Best Lawyers in the United Kingdom, Commodities (2009-2021)
  • Legal 500 UK, Trade Finance - London - "Leading Individual" (2014-2019)
  • IFLR1000 2017, Financial and Corporate — Bank Lending: Lender side (Notable Firm) (2017)
  • Chambers Global, Corporate/M&A - UK (Foreign Experts) (2013); Corporate/Commercial - Africa-wide (2014-2015)
  • Chambers UK, Commodities: Trade Finance (UK-wide) (2013-2020)

Seminars & Presentations

  • Numerous seminars on Trade and Commodity Finance Issues
  • Seminars on Forfaiting, including the Uniform Rules for Forfaiting 

Practices

Industries

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