Slaughter and May corporate luminary Nilufer von Bismarck has been awarded an OBE in the Queen’s New Year’s honours list for services to financial services.
Von Bismarck (pictured), who is a corporate partner and head of the magic circle firm’s financial institutions group and equity capital markets, told Legal Business that the gong came ‘totally out of the blue’.
‘This is really a tribute to the firm’s financial services practice” von Bismarck said, noting that Slaughter and May has an excellent and longstanding financial services practice, advising both the government and the private sector.
Von Bismarck joined the firm in 1990 and was made up to partner in 1994. Her recent work highlights include advising the state-owned UK Green Investment Bank on its £2.3bn sale to Macquarie Group, which closed last August, as well as advising Treasury on the Williams & Glyn alternative remedies package to resolve RBS’s state aid commitment. That deal received European Commission approval last July.
The firm is also acting for Barclays on ring-fencing its retail operations from its investment bank, a transaction which is likely to be ongoing until April 2018.
Other notable honours for City Law included an MBE for Sacha Harber-Kelly, who is soon to join Gibson Dunn & Crutcher as a partner in the US firm’s London disputes and white-collar crime practice. He previously worked at the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) for 10 years, most recently as a prosecutor in the anti-corruption and bribery division.
Harber-Kelly was the SFO’s representative in the government working group that designed the deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) system and acted on its £497m DPA with Rolls-Royce – the largest single investigation carried out by the watchdog. He receive the MBE for services to combatting fraud, bribery and corruption.
nathalie.tidman@legalease.co.uk
For a personal look at Nilufer von Bismarck’s career and life outside work, read Life During Law