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Charles Kerrigan

Partner

Portrait of Charles Kerrigan

Charles Kerrigan

Partner

Contact
CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang LLP
Cannon Place
78 Cannon Street
London
EC4N 6AF
United Kingdom
Languages English, French, Russian

Charles Kerrigan is a partner in the Finance Team and part of the specialist Crypto and Digital Assets Team at CMS London specialising in emerging technologies including crypto, digital assets, decentralised finance and AI.  

He works on corporate finance and venture capital transactions in crypto, tokenisation, NFTs, Web3 and DeFi.

Charles is part of teams working on investing and setting standards for emtech in the UK, Europe and the US. He works on consulting projects on blockchain and AI for public bodies, policy makers, standards institutions, and corporations. 

He has worked on transactions worth over $5bn funding fintech platforms; on over 65 NFT projects; for more than 250 cryptoasset clients; including global exchanges, blockchain gaming and play-to-earn projects, DeFi and Web3 platforms; crypto and digital assets investment & M&A; tokenisation projects for debt, equity and alternative assets. 

The Blockchain Industry Landscape Overview 2018 names Charles as "one of the UK’s leading influencers on blockchain". He is the UK’s “recommended lawyer” for blockchain and digital technology in the UK Parliament Hub.

 

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"Recommended - Fintech and Blockchain"

Whos Who Legal 2022

"most daring, innovative and creative lawyers."

Lawyer Hot 100, 2022

"Charles Kerrigan is a highly respected individual who excels at advising clients on emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence and blockchain technology."

Who's Who Legal - Blockchain, 2021

"Charles Kerrigan is the go-to person in the London market for funding intangible and digital assets."

Legal 500, 2019

"is an excellent technical lawyer with a strong ability to be commercial. He is immensely clever and always finds a workable solution."

Chambers, 2019

"very pragmatic, very attuned to the commercial dynamics and very easy to work with…"

Chambers, 2019

"understands the commercial risk areas of a deal and can be trusted to run a transaction"

Legal 500

"has particular expertise with regards to blockchain"

Legal 500, 2022

"clients praise the 'technically excellent' Charles Kerrigan", “insightful, clever and well-connected”

Legal 500

"a creative but risk-alert and practical lawyer".

Legal 500

"unassuming dynamism"

Chambers

"Recommended - Fintech and Blockchain"

Whos Who Legal 2022

"most daring, innovative and creative lawyers."

Lawyer Hot 100, 2022

"Charles Kerrigan is a highly respected individual who excels at advising clients on emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence and blockchain technology."

Who's Who Legal - Blockchain, 2021

"Charles Kerrigan is the go-to person in the London market for funding intangible and digital assets."

Legal 500, 2019

"is an excellent technical lawyer with a strong ability to be commercial. He is immensely clever and always finds a workable solution."

Chambers, 2019

"very pragmatic, very attuned to the commercial dynamics and very easy to work with…"

Chambers, 2019

"understands the commercial risk areas of a deal and can be trusted to run a transaction"

Legal 500

"has particular expertise with regards to blockchain"

Legal 500, 2022

"clients praise the 'technically excellent' Charles Kerrigan", “insightful, clever and well-connected”

Legal 500

"a creative but risk-alert and practical lawyer".

Legal 500

"unassuming dynamism"

Chambers

Relevant experience

  • Clients include: 20th Century Fox, BAE, Bank of America, BBC, Curzon Advisers Limited, Lloyds Banking Group, MindCandy, UBS Global Asset Management, Wells Fargo and Vodafone.
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Memberships & Roles

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Awards & Rankings

  • Crypto A.M. Award Winner 2020 for professional services
  • Security Tokens Realised Award Winner - London 2020
  • Leading individual - Fintech, Legal 500
  • Ranked lawyer for Banking & Finance, Chambers
  • Nominee for Individual Lawyer of the Year for TMT, Legal 500 UK Awards 2020
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Publications

Policy

  • Advisory boards of the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Artificial Intelligence (APPG AI) and the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Blockchain (APPG Blockchain). 
  • Bank of England’s Financial Markets Law Committee on Virtual Currencies.
  • Special Consultee to the UK LawTech Delivery Panel’s Legal Statement on Cryptoassets and Smart Contracts.
  • Expert consultant to the UNCITRAL UNIDROIT group on legal issues related to the digital economy. 
  • UK Law Commission Commercial law team on legal policy relating to emerging technology.

Books

  • (due Spring 2023) - Crypto and Digital Assets Law and Regulation - Sweet and Maxwell, Co-author and Editor
  • (due Spring 2023) - Blockchain & Cryptocurrency Regulation - Global Legal Group, Co-author
  • 2022 - AI, Machine Learning & Big Data - Global Legal Group, Contributing Editor
  • 2022 - Artificial Intelligence Law and Regulation - Edward Elgar, Co-author and Editor
  • 2020 - Practical Lending and Security Precedents - Sweet and Maxwell, General Editor
  • 2020 - Growing with Blockchain - Novaro Publishing, Co-author
  • 2019 - The Financing of Intangible Assets, TMT Finance and Emerging Technologies (Butterworths) 
  • 2019 - Responsible AI - ILTA, Co-author

Book review

  • [The Financing of Intangible Assets: TMT Finance and Emerging Technologies.] “As businesses innovate, the law must keep pace. Far from being a specialist text, Kerrigan’s book deserves to become mainstream required reading.” (Journal of International Banking and Financial Law 2020)

Reports

  • 2022 - UK Finance: NFTs in Financial Services, Author
  • 2022 - Asset Recovery and International Cooperation (including Mutual Legal Assistance), Team member for report on Crypto-assets and asset recovery
  • 2022 - Citywealth Crypto 100: Chair of Editorial Board

Press and Journals

Monthly columns in City AM and Citywire; quarterly column in Butterworths Journal of International Banking and Financial Law; occasional writing in The Times; The Guardian; Bloomberg UK Financial Services Law Journal; E-Finance and Payments Law and Policy; Financier Worldwide; International Accountant.

Representative Articles

  • 2023 - Embedded finance providers: friend or foe? - Financier Worldwide.
  • Aug 2022 - Ralph, Dobs and the Flippening - Citywire August
  • July 2022 - Crypto isn’t a what, it’s a how - Citywire 
  • 2022 - Crypto Yield Products - JIBFL
  • 2021 - That note on NFTs that got turned into an NFT, written by lawyers interested in NFTs, Erika-Federis.medium.com
  • 2021 - The Work of Art in the Age of Mathematical Representation - City AM
  • 2020 - Tokenisation and Digital Assets: Blockchain in Capital Raising - JIBFL
  • 2019 - Laws and Legal principles relating to Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies: A Taxonomy - JIBFL
  • 2019 - Artificial Intelligence and Equity; Artificial Intelligence and Uncertainty; Artificial Intelligence and Fallibility - Journal of International Banking and Financial Law
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Lectures list

  • Lecturer on finance and fintech, including at LSE, UCL and City University.
  • City of London University of Law – lecturer in Secured Lending, Subordination and Capital Markets.
  • The London School of Economics and Political Science – lecturer on the LLM in The Law and Practice of International Finance; guest lecturer on Digital Money topics
  • Biometrics Institute 
  • International Legal Technology Association, Insight Conference
  • UCL Institute of Brand and Innovation Law (IBIL) – lecturer on IP Transactions: Law and Practice
  • Tomorrow's Transactions Forum - 18th/19th March 2015 - speaker
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Education

  • 1993 - Law – Oxford University, MA
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Expertise

Feed

02/05/2023
CMS Ex­pert Guide to Crypto Reg­u­la­tion in United King­dom
1. How is crypto reg­u­lated? 2. Are the fol­low­ing activ­it­ies reg­u­lated or un­reg­u­lated in your jur­is­dic­tion? ― Ex­change (buy/sell) ― Cus­tody (hold) ― Bor­row­ing/lend­ing ― Yield/stak­ing There...
Expert Guide
Comparable
28/04/2023
Di­git­al As­sets: Non-Fun­gible Tokens
CMS has col­lab­or­ated with UK Fin­ance to de­liv­er a re­port on NFTs and the broad­er di­git­al as­sets eco­sys­tem. From how di­git­al as­sets ac­tu­ally work to how they are reg­u­lated and how they can be used by fin­an­cial...
Publication
30/10/2022
Di­git­al As­sets and Web3 Hub
At CMS we are truly in­ter­ested in everything crypto, block­chain and meta­verse. We en­joy co­oper­at­ing with in­dustry bod­ies and aca­dem­ics, have our voice heard in gov­ern­ment think­ing groups and tasks forces, at­tend and or­gan­ise events and reg­u­larly pub­lish leg­al brief­ings, re­search re­ports and opin­ion pieces.   This page con­tains some of our most re­cent pub­lic­a­tions. If any of the art­icles have your par­tic­u­lar in­terest, feel free to reach out to its au­thors for a deep­er con­ver­sa­tion.
Publication
25/05/2022
AI, ma­chine learn­ing & big data laws and reg­u­la­tions 2022
The United King­dom has an am­bi­tion to be­come the world’s lead­er in Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence (AI) tech­no­logy and policy and AI is in­creas­ingly be­ing ad­op­ted across a wide vari­ety of sec­tors in­clud­ing...
Law-Now FinTech
24/05/2022
AI, Ma­chine Learn­ing & Big Data Laws and Reg­u­la­tions 2022
The United King­dom has an am­bi­tion to be­come the world’s lead­er in Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence (AI) tech­no­logy and policy and AI is in­creas­ingly be­ing ad­op­ted across a wide vari­ety of sec­tors in­clud­ing...
Publication
18/05/2022
Token­ised Funds Series: Pa­per 4 – Dis­putes con­sid­er­a­tions
This pub­lic­a­tion was first pub­lished by The IA in col­lab­or­a­tion with CMS, in Septem­ber 2021
Regzone Financial Services & Regulation
11/05/2022
Token­ised Funds Series: Pa­per 3 - Pro­spect­us Dis­clos­ures
This pub­lic­a­tion was first pub­lished by The IA in col­lab­or­a­tion with CMS, in June 2021
Regzone Financial Services & Regulation
04/05/2022
A CMS Guide to Re­struc­tur­ing & In­solv­ency in Crypto
Giv­en the chan­ging land­scape, we ex­pect to in­creas­ingly en­counter crypto as­sets in R&I situ­ations and they have been in the spot­light as HM Treas­ury un­veiled its plans to make the UK a glob­al crypto as­set tech­no­logy hub and with the evolving Ukraine / Rus­sia con­flict. 
Publication
04/05/2022
Token­ised Funds Series: Pa­per 2 - Reg­u­lat­ory Con­sid­er­a­tions
This pub­lic­a­tion was first pub­lished by The IA in col­lab­or­a­tion with CMS, in March 2021
Regzone Financial Services & Regulation
27/04/2022
Token­ised Funds Series: Pa­per 1 - What, why and how
This pub­lic­a­tion was first pub­lished by The IA in col­lab­or­a­tion with CMS, in Novem­ber 2020
Regzone Financial Services & Regulation
29/03/2022
Where’s my “NFT” gone? Po­ten­tial pit­falls of NFT own­er­ship
NFTs have re­ceived a lot of at­ten­tion in the last year, so much so that Collins Dic­tion­ary named “NFT” their word of the year for 2021. But it is worth not­ing that own­er­ship of an NFT of­ten ul­ti­mately...
Law-Now TMT - Technology, Media & Telecommunications
18/01/2022
Charles Ker­rigan named in The Law­yer Hot 100 2022
CMS part­ner Charles Ker­rigan has been named in The Law­yer’s 2022 Hot 100 list, a roster of standout UK law­yers over the past year who have been deemed the most dar­ing, in­nov­at­ive and cre­at­ive from across...
News
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