Joshua Bates

Josh heads up our financial services and legal services regulatory team.

He supports and advises clients and professional advisers on all aspects of financial regulation and legal regulation and has a keen interest in the practical application and regulation of cryptocurrencies, digital assets, DeFi and Web 3.0 technologies.

In the financial services space, his practice is all encompassing and includes:

• Insurance, reinsurance, captives, and alternative risk transfer vehicles.
• Discretionary benefits schemes.
• Consumer credit.
• Regulated claims management.
• Wealth management, asset management, and investment management.
• Investment funds, collective investment schemes, and alternative investment funds.
• MiFID II investment business.
• Funeral plan contracts.
• Retail and investment banking.
• Regulated home finance.
• Bridging finance and non-traditional finance.
• Cryptoassets, digital assets, DeFi and Web 3.0.
• Applications for FCA authorisation.
• Appointed representative regime.

His work in the legal services sector involves:

• Authorisation applications and regulatory structuring.
• Legal expenses insurance programs and insurance distribution by legal professionals.
• Lead generation, introducer, referral, and outsourced marketing arrangements.
• Litigation funding.
• Professional indemnity insurance.
• Successor practices.
• Trust corporations.
• Legal ombudsman and regulator complaints.

Josh is regularly instructed by other professional advisors to be part of their delivery team and provide regulatory due diligence, perimeter and compliance guidance, change in control advice, and transactional insurance support in M&A activity, property transactions, environmental projects, and insolvency proceedings.

Josh enjoys public speaking and recording podcasts. He delivers in-person and remote student careers presentations and CPD training for law firms, members of the Chartered Institute of Taxation and members of the Association of Insurance and Risk Managers in Industry and Commerce. He is also an active member of the Liverpool Law Society Regulatory Sub-Committee.

In between work and family, Josh trains Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and, albeit quite rarely these days, tries to get up to Scotland during the winter months to do some climbing.