Outsourcing

Outsourcing offers numerous benefits to businesses not least in cost base reduction and operational efficiency.

We have considerable experience in the field of outsourcing across a variety of sectors, and particularly in financial services where we act for a broad range of financial institutions, including fintechs and challenger firms.

In financial services outsourcing, we differentiate ourselves by combining commercial, financial services and tax expertise. This combined offering enables us to support clients in structuring, negotiating and concluding compliant and effective outsourcing agreements, including advising on and implementing structures to take advantage of available VAT exemptions

Our specialist financial services regulatory experience is particularly pertinent as regulators are increasingly focused on firms’ outsourcing arrangements, including outsourcing to the cloud, and the oversight and control that firms have over their outsourced service providers and sub-outsourcing in third-party supply chains, increasingly involving fintechs.

We also have extensive advisory and transactional outsourcing expertise covering the full range of IT outsourcing (ITO), business process outsourcing (BPO) and other forms of outsourcing such as facilities management and outsourced hotel management.

We advise on and help structure different kinds of outsourcing and related business models, including cloud computing, shared services, managed services, off-and near-shore service delivery models and intra-group outsourcing.

In particular, we advise with respect to:

additional requirements for critical or important outsourcings;
operational resilience for banks, insurers, payment institutions and enhanced SMCR firms;
outsourcing to the cloud, particularly by insurers and banks;
consolidation of outsourcing providers into a single provider model;
substitutability and transition arrangements;
third-party supply chain and sub-outsourcing regulatory requirements; and
fund structures, including ACD delegation arrangements.

In advising our clients, we also draw on input from our data privacy, intellectual property, employment, investment management and tax specialists.

Recent work

EQ Hotels

Advising EQ Hotels in its appointment as outsourced hotel manager and asset manager of five hotels across Paris, branded under the Intercontinental Hotels Group and Marriott International flags.

Merian Global Investors and Quilter Investors

Advising Merian Global Investors and Quilter Investors on their respecting middle and back office outsourcings to Citibank, following the split of the Old Mutual business.

Liontrust

Advising Liontrust on its outsourced arrangements with BNY Mellon.

Veritas Investment Management and WH Ireland

Advising Veritas Investment Management and WH Ireland, the wealth managers, on innovative technology platform outsourcings.

OCS

Advising OCS on a number of its facilities management outsourcing arrangements.

Various asset managers

Advising various asset managers on their fund administration and transfer agency arrangements.

Vivo Energy

Advising Vivo Energy in a transaction for the sourcing, implementation and outsourced operation of information systems and related services in support of a digital card payment loyalty programme.

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