FinTech Legal Labs is a multidisciplinary collaboration between 19 Ashurst partners and senior lawyers across different practice groups, that has been set up to address the demand from FinTech companies at various stages of development for legal support and access to investors. The programme will be run over three days, and is designed to:

• Cover key areas of law relevant to the accepted FinTech companies and give them access to the firm's clients and contacts from financial institutions and investors; and

• Provide leading financial institutions and investors access to cutting edge FinTech companies that have been accepted in the programme.

FinTech Legal Labs is led by partner Abradat Kamalpour, and includes partners Jamie Ng, Tara Waters, David Futter, Jake Green, Tim Cant, David Wilkinson, Paul Miller, Crowley Woodfrod, Anna-Marie Slot, and Kerion Ball, counsels Lorraine Johnston and Gita Shivarattan, senior associates Conor Fuston, Bardley Rice, Casey Kinchella Farzana Ali and Daryl Yip, and associate Ida Mokhtassi.

Commenting, Abradat Kamalpour, said:

"This is an exciting new initiative from the Ashurst global FinTech group, which is a key area of focus and growth for the firm. Leading financial institutions and investors have recognised that financial technology is critical to their future and success and having access to cutting edge FinTech companies is increasingly becoming an important part of their strategic planning.

We are confident that this focused accelerator programme will provide an ideal platform to bring together know how, collaboration and create partnerships from across the fintech and institutional sectors. The programme also allows us to strengthen our relationships with promising FinTech companies that are going to play a critical role in the future of the financial services industry."

FinTech Legal Labs will feature an investors and advisors panel to bring valuable insight and guidance to the programme. The panel includes professor David W. Mills, professor of practice of law, Stanford Law School and partner and advisor to Chairman of Fortress Investment Group; Anne Devereux-Mills, founder, Parlay House; Matthew C. Le Merle, co-founder and managing partner of Fifth Era and of Keiretsu Capital; Michael Barrell Founder of MBR Partners and CEO of Juliet Media; Shelley Bays, President of Keiretsu Forum London, Jeffrey Sweeney, Chairman and CEO of US Capital Global; Peter Hewlett, Partner at A.T.Kearney; Craig Hollingworth, co-founder and CDO of Concirrus; Anthony Woolley, Head of Innovation for the UK, Societe Generale; and Lawrence Wintermeyer, Co-Chair of Global Digital Finance.