Expertise
| Niamh is a Partner in the Financial Institutions Group. For 20 years, Niamh has specialised in financial services regulatory matters, with experience across all of the traditional sector classifications, Asset Management, Insurance and Banking. Her primary focus is on providing advice to Irish and International Investment Banking, Investment Firm and Investment Fund clients, through authorisation, regulatory change projects, supervisory engagements, Firm ‘Own Initiative’ Reviews’, Supervisory Risk Mitigation Programmes and Skilled Person Independent Reviews. Having joined Matheson in 2021. Niamh’s career has spanned sustained periods in both the Central Bank of Ireland (Supervision and Policy) during which time she also qualified as a Barrister as well as at a leading global consultancy firm where she was focused on Ireland’s Regulatory Advisory Offering for Asset Management and Investment Bank and Investment Firms, dealing with global clients who operated in or from Ireland. In addition to the provision of legal advice, her private practice, public service and industry experience enables her to advise clients across cross-sectoral and horizontal regulatory reforms in areas such as governance, organisational design and enterprise-wide control frameworks, outsourcing and operational resilience. Niamh is widely recognised for the breadth of her sectoral experience which enables her to provide relevant and timely information in respect of the regulator's expectations of firms regulated in EuropeIreland and those seeking to be regulated in Ireland. Niamh regularly speaks and has published on financial services regulatory topics. She is regularly engaged with the various industry bodies particularly for fund service providers and investment firms and also engages with Government agencies on key policy issues in the space. |
Experience Highlights
Niamh has advised a global suite of asset management clients on the following matters, advising :
- major international financial groups on the establishment of regulated entities, in particular MiFID investment firms and fund service providers;
- on licencing and change of business model application projects driven largely by the recent CRD 6 legislative change;
- banking and finance service firm entrants to the Irish market on the comparators between the CBI and FCA authorisation applications and early establishment processes;
- on regulatory impacts of institutional design and re-organisation, reflecting Irish and EU, governance, risk, control and prudential requirements for individual regulated financial institutions and their Groups, for example the EU IPU regime;
- on the regulatory aspects of high value mergers, acquisitions, disposals as well as the restructuring of corporate groups;
- on a Skilled Person Independent Review, pursuant to the Central Bank of Ireland (Supervision and Enforcement Act 2013); and on regulatory investigations and enforcement actions;
- global financial services clients on key changes across the prudential and conduct regulatory sphere. In particular, CRD, IFR/IFD, MiFID, MAR, BRRD, AIFMD, Client Assets, IIA, UCITS and enhancements to the EU AML/CTF regulatory framework.
- clients on their response to Central Bank of Ireland Risk Mitigation Programmes, Thematic Reviews, On-Site Inspections and PRISM engagement meetings.
Education
The Honorable Society of King's Inns
University College Dublin (BBLS)