Our experts

Paul Anderson
Partner
Squire Patton Boggs LLP, Leeds

Paul Anderson has specialised in financial services matters for over 20 years. His expertise covers a range of retail and wholesale financial services businesses, including clients from the banking, investment management / advice, crypto, insurance, building society, broker dealer and IFA sectors, as well as intermediaries in the energy, investment, and insurance sectors. Paul is editor to three chapters of Butterworths Financial Regulation Service and editor and UK chapter author of the Virtual Currency Law Review.

David Bearman
Founding Partner
Firefly Capital, London

David Bearman is a Founding Partner and Board member of Firefly Capital, a private investment group with interests in Asset Management, Real Estate and Financial Technology. David leads Firefly’s Real Estate activities investing in commercial real estate across the UK. David read law at Leeds University [LLB (Hons)] and took his professional exams at Guildford College of Law in 1990. He qualified as a lawyer with Berwin Leighton (now Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner) where he specialised in corporate finance. In 1997, he left law to follow a more entrepreneurial path in investment banking and wealth management. He co-founded Firefly Capital in 2013.

Richard Calnan
Partner
Norton Rose Fulbright LLP, London

Richard Calnan is a partner in Norton Rose Fulbright LLP and a Visiting Professor at University College London. His practice has involved a broad range of corporate and financial transactions, restructurings, and insolvencies. He has a written on various aspects of commercial law, including proprietary rights, secured transactions, and contractual and statutory interpretation.

Zsuzsa Elek
Solicitor
Financial Conduct Authority, London

Zsuzsa Elek brings over 20 years of experience in international legal matters, with a background that includes representing prominent banks and investment firms. From 2017 to 2019, she served as a legal advisor to the Regulatory Decisions Committee, an independent decision-making body within the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). In 2020, she joined the FCA’s Litigation and Legal Review Group as a solicitor, primarily representing the FCA in proceedings before the Regulatory Decisions Committee, the Upper Tribunal, and the High Court. Zsuzsa holds a law degree from Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, a Diplôme d’études approfondies (DEA) in Comparative Law from Paris II Panthéon-Assas, and an LLM from the University of Chicago Law School.

Russell Kelsall
Partner, Head of Consumer & Motor Finance
Walker Morris LLP, Leeds

Russell is a Partner at Walker Morris LLP, Leeds and heads its award-winning Consumer & Motor Finance team. He specialises in both non-contentious and contentious consumer credit, motor and asset finance, mortgage lending and payment services issues.  He is an editor of Goode: Consumer Credit Law and Practice, Butterworths Financial Regulation Service, Asset and Project Finance and Practical Lending and Security Precedents, and the author of Consumer Credit: Law, Practice & Precedents.

Myrte Meijer Timmerman Thijssen
Legal Officer
UNIDROIT, Rome

Myrte Thijssen works as a Legal Officer at the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT), where she is currently mainly responsible for the projects on Bank Insolvency and on International Investment Contracts. Before joining UNIDROIT, Myrte worked for the Dutch Central Bank, the Single Resolution Board, and for the Italian national development bank. Myrte studied at the University of Amsterdam and New York University. She has taught Corporate Law and Law of Bank Crisis Management at the University of Amsterdam and the University of Bologna, respectively.  She has published several articles in the field of banking and financial law with a particular focus on bank resolution.

Cristina Volpin
Competition Policy Expert
OECD, Paris

Cristina Volpin is a Competition Policy Expert at the OECD in Paris. She is currently on loan to the European Commission’s DG Competition, working on AI and digital matters and competition. At the OECD, she conducts research and publishes studies, including with a focus on competition enforcement and sustainability, the circular economy, labour markets, and innovation. Cristina obtained a PhD in EU Competition Law from the University of Padua and completed a postgraduate course on Business Sustainability Management from the University of Cambridge. She is a Senior Fellow at George Washington University for competition and innovation.