Jonathan Gilmour

Travers Smith is a leading City of London law firm whose Derivatives & Structured Products practice, headed by partner Jonathan Gilmour, has been named Derivatives Law Firm of the Year in England at the Corporate INTL Global Awards 2025. The recognition reflects the team's standing as a go-to adviser on derivatives, structured products and the regulatory frameworks that govern them.

As Head of Derivatives & Structured Products, Jonathan Gilmour leads a practice that advises on a wide range of financial instruments and risk-management strategies. The team's work encompasses derivatives, repo, securities lending and debt capital market instruments, together with hedging strategies across interest-rate, foreign-exchange, inflation, equity, credit, commodity and longevity risks. It also advises on English law collateral and security arrangements, investment management, and liability-driven and cashflow-driven investment strategies for pension schemes, as well as pension funding solutions.

A significant strand of the practice is regulatory: the team guides clients through the demanding requirements of regimes such as EMIR, SFTR and CSDR, helping fund managers and other market participants navigate rules that have a direct bearing on how they transact and report. This regulatory depth, combined with transactional expertise, allows the practice to advise not only on documenting and structuring trades but also on the compliance framework surrounding them. Commentators in the legal directories have praised the team as very collaborative, noting its specialist skills and its ability to translate complex legal and regulatory frameworks into easily digestible language.

The practice serves a broad client base that includes private equity houses and financial sponsors, pension schemes, banks and insurers, asset managers, corporates, fintechs and funds. This range reflects the pervasiveness of derivatives and structured products across modern finance, where such instruments are used to hedge risk, raise finance and manage portfolios. Advising effectively across these clients requires both technical command of the instruments themselves and an understanding of the commercial context in which each type of institution operates.

Derivatives law is one of the more technically exacting areas of financial practice, sitting at the meeting point of complex documentation, regulatory obligation and market convention. The Travers Smith team's reputation for combining specialist knowledge with responsiveness and clear, practical communication has made it a trusted adviser to sophisticated institutions on both transactions and regulation. The Corporate INTL Global Awards 2025 recognition as Derivatives Law Firm of the Year in England underlines the strength of the firm's derivatives and structured products practice under Jonathan Gilmour's leadership.