European law firms Chiomenti, Cuatrecasas Gonçalves Pereira, Gide and Gleiss Lutz have decided to combine their expertise launching a joint focus group for regulatory issues centred in Frankfurt.

The Regulatory Hub boasts a core of highly skilled lawyers coming from all four Firms’ home countries. With its operational centre in Frankfurt, in proximity to the European Central Bank, the hub will be able to interact with banking regulators in a stable and continuous manner across all day to day processes. In addition, the hub will contribute over time to the creation of a shared wealth of knowledge among firms which will be enriched by the diverse background and origins of its professionals.

Following the introduction of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), the European Central Bank has obviously become the cornerstone of the banking supervision system. The establishment of a European hub capable to act across national boundaries is thus the natural development of the four Firms’ role and tradition in the field of banking supervisory law.

The four firms, all leading players in their respective home markets, have a solid relationship in working together and boast a unique expertise in advising clients on regulatory matters and close links to local regulators.

“The hub wants to follow the development of the sector and act as a permanent point of contact between the firms where ideas, experiences and competences can be pooled together and exchanged to the ultimate benefit of the clients’’ says Maximilian von Rom, partner at Gleiss Lutz.

“In such a rapidly evolving market, the establishment of the Hub will put us in the position to offer extremely swift advice on regulatory issues with highest possible quality standards” says Gide's managing partner Stéphane Puel, member of the Banking & Finance practice group.

“The Regulatory Hub will allow us to keep dealing with the increasing role of the European Central Bank and the challenges generated by the launch of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) in an even more efficient way than in the past while working on mandates from any of the four firms’’, adds Fernando Minguez Hernandez, a partner at Cuatrecasas, Gonçalves Pereira.

"If in the past national authorities largely held the reins even when it came to implementing EU rules, European banking supervisory law is today characterised by the increasing extent to which newly introduced regulation do not require separate implementation in national law", says Alessandro Portolano, partner at Chiomenti. “The importance of Frankfurt will continue to grow. Frankfurt will become even more important for the banking sector than Brussels for antitrust today’’, adds Vincenzo Troiano, a partner at Chiomenti.

The Regulatory hub team is coordinated by the partners Vincenzo Troiano and Alessandro Portolano from Chiomenti, Fernando Minguez Hernandez from Cuatrecasas Gonçalves Pereira, Stephane Puel from Gide as well as Maximilian von Rom from Gleiss Lutz.