Sponsors: City Week 2024

Watershed is the enterprise climate platform. Companies like Airbnb, Carlyle Group, BlackRock, Aon and BBVA use Watershed to measure, report, and act on their emissions, so they can produce audit-ready carbon footprints that drive real reductions. With embedded climate intelligence from the world’s leading climate and policy experts, Watershed is the platform of choice for companies seeking to satisfy regulatory requirements, unlock new business opportunities, and address climate-related risks.

Watershed customers also benefit from an in-house team of leading climate experts and an extensive ecosystem of partners, clients, and advisors. As part of Watershed’s end-to-end platform, customers have exclusive access to a marketplace of scientifically vetted, high-additionality carbon removal projects and high-quality carbon avoidance, plus groundbreaking virtual power purchase agreements. Watershed’s advisors and investors include Mark Carney, Christiana Figueres, Al Gore, Sequoia, and Kleiner Perkins. Watershed is dual-headquartered in San Francisco, CA, and London, U.K.

With over 74 offices in 44 countries and 5,800+ lawyers worldwide, we combine deep local market understanding with a global overview, giving us the ability not only to see what’s coming, but to shape it.

Whatever the market is doing, you can be assured that we are there to navigate it with you. Our lawyers are dedicated to exploring and informing you about what is on the horizon, whether it’s the regulatory implications of AI for your business, tokenisation, sustainable finance and responsible investment, reputation management, or other strategically important projects including business acquisitions and regulated outsourcings.

Your interests and priorities are at the heart of what we do. Our lawyers are genuine experts in their fields, with a grasp of detail that’s second to none. Our next-generation mindset is woven into all we do. It means we can anticipate the likely challenges, accelerate our pace and create the space to develop innovative solutions.

We’re diverse, supportive and inclusive, embracing our corporate social responsibility and creating a culture in which every one of our people, can maximise their potential and thrive.

Travers Smith is a leading full-service law firm, based in London. It’s not just law at Travers Smith. Your business is our business. Independent and bound only by your ambitions, we are wherever you need us to be. Our clients know that we treat their business as our business, their dispute as our dispute, their challenges as ours. They know that wherever in the world they or their ambitions lie, we will work as one of their team to get things done. And they know that we do so in a straight-talking, thoughtful and open way. We act for publicly listed and private companies, financial institutions and private equity clients, and other business enterprises involved in large and complex UK and cross-border matters, transactions and disputes. In particular, we have specialist teams who provide cutting edge advice to clients in relation to the fast-moving and dynamic ESG and payments landscapes.

Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the international financial centre (IFC) of the capital city of the United Arab Emirates opened for business on 21st October 2015. ADGM augments Abu Dhabi’s position as a leading financial centre and a business hub serving as a strategic link between the growing economies of the Middle East, Africa and South Asia and the rest of the world.

Operating within an international regulatory framework based on direct application of the English Common Law, ADGM governs the entirety of Al Maryah Island, which is designated as the financial free zone of Abu Dhabi.

ADGM is ranked as one of the top IFCs in the Middle East and Africa region and is considered MENA’s largest Fintech hub. With a progressive and inclusive business ecosystem, ADGM enables global financial and non-financial institutions to leverage synergies between itself and multiple jurisdictions, thereby positioning it as one of the world’s most advanced, diverse and progressively governed financial hubs.

For more details on ADGM, please visit www.adgm.com or follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @adglobalmarket and LinkedIn: @Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM)

Shearman & Sterling is a global law firm that partners with corporations, major financial institutions, emerging growth companies, governments, and state-owned enterprises to provide the legal and industry insight needed to navigate the challenges of today and achieve their ambitions of tomorrow. For 150 years, Shearman & Sterling has built strong and long-lasting relationships with clients around the world by advising on ground-breaking, and precedent-setting matters across industries and sectors. Our lawyers come from 55 countries and speak more than 65 languages.

Through FinTech Foundry by Shearman, the firm is committed to supporting FinTech startups and entrepreneurs shaping the future of financial services. We provide multi-disciplinary legal and industry knowledge, thought leadership and a forum to connect key participants in the wider FinTech ecosystem. Leveraging our deep regulatory knowledge and global capabilities, we help clients cultivate relationships with regulators and other market participants, deliver innovative solutions to increasingly complex legal and regulatory issues, and capitalize on opportunities presented by regulatory reform initiatives and market developments. Learn more about the FinTech Foundry here: https://fintech.shearman.com/

Euroclear is the financial industry’s trusted provider of post-trade services. Guided by its purpose, Euroclear innovates to bring safety, efficiency and connections to financial markets for sustainable economic growth.

Euroclear provides domestic and cross-border settlement and related services for bonds, equities and derivatives, as well as for ETFs and mutual funds. As a proven, resilient capital market infrastructure, Euroclear is committed to delivering risk-mitigation, automation and efficiency at scale for its global client franchise.

The Euroclear group includes Euroclear Bank – which is rated AA by Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s – as well as Euroclear Belgium, Euroclear Finland, Euroclear France, Euroclear Nederland, Euroclear Sweden, Euroclear UK & International and the fund platform MFEX.

The Euroclear group settled the equivalent of EUR 1,072 trillion in securities transactions in 2023, representing 299 million domestic and cross-border transactions, and held EUR 37.7 trillion in assets for clients by end of 2023.

Global Futures and Options Ltd (GFO-X), through its strategic partnership with LCH SA, is the UK's first regulated and centrally cleared trading venue dedicated to digital asset derivatives.

GFO-X services the significant unmet need of large global institutional participants who require the certainty of a safe, regulated trading venue where large financial institutions can trade digital asset derivatives at scale while protecting their client's assets. A 'regulation first' approach has already enabled GFO-X to achieve trust and credibility with the largest institutions. GFO-X's goal is to bring partners along the journey of innovation, step by step, as digital assets deliver more sophisticated institutional grade products.

In April 2023, GFO-X announced a strategic partnership with LCH SA, a London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) business. LCH SA will introduce a new, segregated central counterparty clearing service, LCH DigitalAssetClear. LCH DigitalAssetClear is focused on counterparty credit, risk management, and the settlement needs of the digital asset market as institutional products develop. s develop.

Ownera is a technology company delivering interoperability solutions to the world of tokenized assets. The company led the creation of the open peer-to-peer protocol called FinP2P and delivers FinP2P based network routers and digital securities solutions to the regulated financial services industry. Ownera’s FinP2P routers enable global distribution and liquidity by connecting tokenized assets distributed by sell-side institutions to buy-side demand. The routers facilitate the negotiation and settlement of transactions between the counterparties and their various regulated service providers including custodians, brokers, transfer agents, digital cash providers and lenders.

Ownera completed its Series A investment round in 2022 and its strategic investors include J.P. Morgan, U.S. Bancorp, LRC Group, Draper Goren Holm, tokentus Investment AG, Accomplice Blockchain, Polymorphic Capital, The Ropart Group and Archax

For more information, go to www.ownera.io

Since being founded in 2018, Copper has been building the standard for institutional digital asset infrastructure with a focus on custody and collateral management. Underpinned by multi-award-winning technology, Copper has built a comprehensive and secure suite of products and services required to safely custody and trade digital assets. At the core of Copper’s infrastructure is ClearLoop, which enables clients to manage collateral and settle trades in near real-time across multiple exchanges while mitigating counterparty risk and increasing capital efficiency.

Latham & Watkins delivers innovative solutions to complex legal and business challenges around the world. From a global platform, Latham lawyers advise leading multinationals, boundary-pushing start-ups, and the investors and financial institutions that fuel them. The firm helps clients navigate market-shaping transactions, high-stakes litigation and trials, and sophisticated regulatory matters. Latham is one of the world’s largest providers of pro bono services, steadfastly supports initiatives designed to advance diversity within the firm and the legal profession, and is committed to exploring and promoting environmental sustainability.

LSEG (London Stock Exchange Group) is a leading global financial markets infrastructure and data provider, playing a vital social and economic role in the world’s financial system.

With our open approach, trusted expertise and global scale, we enable the sustainable growth and stability of our customers and their communities. We are dedicated partners with extensive experience, deep knowledge and a worldwide presence in data and analytics; indices; capital formation; and trade execution, clearing and risk management across multiple asset classes.

LSEG is headquartered in the United Kingdom, with significant operations in 70 countries across EMEA, North America, Latin America and Asia Pacific. We employ 23,000 people globally, more than half located in Asia Pacific.

The Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) is an onshore business and financial centre located in Doha, established by Law No. 7 of 2005 of the State of Qatar. A world-class platform for companies, QFC offers its own legal, regulatory, tax and business environment, contributing to the decisive economic development and diversification prescribed by Qatar National Vision 2030.

Supported by QFC’s broad range of legal and regulatory services, regulated and non-regulated, that align with international best practice, domestic and international companies can set up or expand their business in Qatar.

QFC allows up to 100% foreign ownership, 100% repatriation of profits, and charges a competitive rate of 10% corporate tax on locally-sourced profits, all while integrating businesses into Qatar’s swift expansion into a major trade and investment centre.

QFC is governed by the following four independent bodies. Its business-friendly ecosystem operates in line with international best practice to ensure clients receive optimal operational, regulatory, and judicial support.

Ripple is the leader in enterprise blockchain and crypto solutions, transforming how the world moves, manages, tokenizes and stores value. Ripple’s business solutions are faster, more transparent, and more cost effective - solving inefficiencies that have long defined the status quo. And together with partners and the larger developer community, we identify use cases where crypto technology will inspire new business models and create opportunity for more people. With every solution, we’re realizing a more sustainable global economy and planet - increasing access to inclusive and scalable financial systems while leveraging carbon neutral blockchain technology and a green digital asset, XRP. This is how we deliver on our mission to build crypto solutions for a world without economic borders.

Slaughter and May is a leading international law firm with a diverse and extensive practice comprising the full range of corporate, financing, regulatory, technology and other legal advice. The firm is recognised throughout the business community for its innovation, expertise and commitment to its clients – helping its clients achieve their commercial objectives and to deal with the most business-critical and challenging situations all over the world, however complex or new those challenges may be.

The firm’s financial institutions practice advises clients across the full waterfront of the financial services sector and is known for supporting clients on some of the most complex, ground-breaking, and innovative legal and regulatory matters. The firm applies its deep insight into the workings of markets, conduct risk and prudential regulation to its trusted advisory relationships with clients, ranging from global banks to early stage businesses. Advising clients on the legal and regulatory issues that they encounter on the development and use of emerging technologies is central to the firm’s work and is one of the many areas in which the firm is well known for its commercial and creative approach to addressing its clients’ challenges.

Further information about Slaughter and May is available at www.slaughterandmay.com.

Custodiex provides institutional-grade technology infrastructure solutions for storage and transaction processing of digital assets. Founded by Cyber & Information Security and Financial Services veterans and built by Cryptographic experts, we understand the high standards our solutions need to meet for our customers. Our unique solution provides cold storage, which is usable in real-time with unlimited scalability. We support many storage regions across the globe. We enable banks, asset & wealth managers and many other financial institutions to unlock the potential of digital assets.

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