Expertise
Douglas advises on a wide range of regulatory and compliance matters, with a particular focus on wealth and investments, retail banking, electronic money, payment services and matters pertaining to financial crime, anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing.
Douglas has extensive experience in advising on regulatory reform and the implementation of large-scale regulatory change projects. He is experienced in contentious and non-contentious regulatory investigations.
Douglas joined Addleshaw Goddard in 2024 from the UK regulatory practice of a leading US international law firm. Prior to this, he was Senior Counsel at one of the world's largest investment banks, primarily responsible for planning and implementing multi-jurisdictional regulatory reform projects. His in-house experience, coupled with his time in private practice, means that he understands and appreciates the client's perspective when preparing and delivering commercial, comprehensible and unambiguous advice.
Douglas trained at a top-ranked Australian law firm, before being recruited by an Australian bank to help design and implement a large-scale remediation program, which was the largest program of its kind in Australia, to meet revised licence conditions imposed by the regulator with Senate oversight.
Before qualifying as a lawyer, Douglas clerked for Justice Hulme QC in the Supreme Court of New South Wales. He holds a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) and a Bachelor of Arts (BA) from the University of New South Wales.
- Experience
- Advised a wealth management platform on matters pertaining to fractional shares, including regulatory permissions, client money and securities requirements, and alternative structures for holding proprietary fractions to limit financial exposure.
- Advised a British multinational bank on whether early termination dates in facility agreements can be used to determine the maturity to reduce its capital requirements under the Capital Requirements Regulations.
- Advised a global investment bank on client money and securities rules in the United Kingdom and its interplay with how the bank was holding client money and securities in 29 jurisdictions across Europe and the Americas.
- Advised an online dating and geosocial networking service provider on the scope of the Electronic Money Regulations, and more specifically, whether its issuance of virtual "coins" constituted electronic money.
- Advised a Japanese bank, providing payment services in the United Kingdom and the European Union, on whether it had breached its obligations under the Payment Services Regulations by allowing its customers the optionality of SHA/BEN/OUR codes in SWIFT transactions for both outgoing and incoming payments; advice provided in relation to reporting obligations and liability exposure.
- Advised an investment management firm whether a group refinancing arrangement would be permitted under the Russian Sanctions Regulations or whether the circumvention prohibition thereunder would be triggered.
- Education
- University of New South Wales – LLB (2014)
- University of New South Wales – BA (2014)
