Aims and Objectives
Join your colleagues for an afternoon of updates on core areas of interest/concern in business law practice & procedure. This conference, presented by the Business Law Committee in collaboration with Law Society Professional Training, is aimed at solicitors practising in business and commercial law.

Topics to be covered include

• EU (Anti-Money Laundering: Beneficial Ownership of Corporate Entities) Regulations 2019:
  • An overview of the 2019 Regulations;
  • Completing and maintaining an internal register of beneficial ownership (precedent template and worked examples provided )
• Warranty and Indemnity Insurance Policies
• Guidance on e-signatures, electronic contracts and certain other electronic transactions in commercial/corporate transactions
• Discussion Panel – How technology is changing our corporate and commercial practices.

Chairperson/Speaker

Neil Keenan, Partner, Byrne Wallace, Dublin
Neil is a Partner and Head of the ByrneWallace Corporate team. With over twenty years’ experience as a corporate lawyer, Neil has advised on many significant and complex transactions including mergers and acquisitions, private equity and venture capital investments, corporate re-organisations, examinerships and business rescues and turnarounds. He also advises on shareholder and joint venture agreements and commercial contracts such as franchise and distribution agreements. In addition Neil has advised extensively on company law and corporate governance and regularly advises on matters such as Directors’ duties and shareholder rights and disputes. Neil has a particular experience and interest in the renewable and alternative energy sectors and has also dealt with many transactions in the medical devices and medtech sectors and acts for a number of technology companies. Prior to joining ByrneWallace in 2016 Neil was the Managing Partner of another corporate practice and previously practised as a Corporate partner in another large Dublin law firm.   Neil regularly lectures in the Law Society including the Law Society's series of seminars during 2015 on the Companies Act, 2014. Neil has also authored a chapter in the Law Society's Business Law manual, and regularly contributes articles to national media and specialist publications such as Energy Ireland's renewable energy magazine. He is a regular speaker on company and commercial law related topics.

Speakers 

Fiona O’Connell, Partner, O’Flynn Exhams, Cork
Fiona has extensive experience in company and commercial law matters advising a broad range of private and public sector bodies as well as charitable organisations, banks, investors and PLCs. She advises several Irish charitable organizations on corporate governance matters. Her work includes drafting and advising on a wide range of commercial contracts and agreements with particular focus on non-disclosure agreements, shareholders agreements, joint ventures, partnerships, shared/ transitional services agreements, licensing of commercial rights as well as regulatory issues including GDPR. She also advises on investments in spin outs for third level institutions including related IP agreements. Fiona advises on significant mergers and acquisitions in the Irish market and her work in this area involves interaction with financial and taxation advisers to agree the terms of financing agreements, deeds of covenant, taxation warranties. She also advises on corporate restructurings and private equity as well as working with leading Irish banks on facility letters and related security. She has negotiated several refinancing’s and settlement agreements with third party lenders. Fiona has lectured at UCC and at the Law Society of Ireland on company and consumer law and contributed to a book on data protection legislation. She is a current member of the Law Society’s Business Law Committee.

Paul Egan, Partner, Mason Hayes & Curran, Dublin
Paul is a Partner and Chairman of Mason Hayes & Curran Corporate Department, practising in corporate finance, and mergers and acquisitions. Paul is a former Chairman of Corporate and practises primarily in public company transactions and corporate governance. Paul is Chairman of the Company Law Review Group (CLRG), the statutory body responsible for advising the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation on matters of company law. He is a former member of the Irish Takeover Panel, as nominee of the Law Society, 2012 to 2018. Paul is author of several books on company law and securities law, including Irish and EU Market Abuse Texts (MHC 2017), European Union Securities Legislation (MHC, 5 editions 2004-2014), Irish Corporate Procedures (Jordans, 3 editions 1993-2007), contributor on securities law to Bloomsbury’s Companies Acts 1963 to 2012 (Bloomsbury, 2013), Ethics in the Public and Private Sector: the Legislation (MHC 2012). Paul is a member of the Irish Stock Exchange Listing and Rules Committees, 2005 to date.

Paul McGennis, Solicitor, DUAL Asset Underwriting Ireland, Dublin  
Paul is an experienced Irish solicitor with over 30 years’ experience in advising in Real Estate transactions and Banking/ Financing of Property Developments and Acquisitions. Paul’s recent experience includes acting in the acquisition and development of both commercial and residential property, acting in respect of the financing of same, together with portfolio loan sales and acquisitions advising vendors, purchasers and funders in respect of loans secured on both Irish and International assets. Paul joined DUAL Asset Underwriting in February 2019. His long experience in providing legal advice in the Real Estate and Banking sectors will prove invaluable in advising clients on a broad range of risks underwritten by DUAL Asset.

Justin Ansell, Head of M&A Insurance, DUAL Corporate Risk, London
Justin Ansell is global Head of DUAL M&A, based in London. Having joined DUAL in January 2018.  He was previously Head of M&A Insurance for Zurich Insurance plc for almost 10 years and Legal Counsel for AIG’s M&A Insurance Group prior to that. Justin is a qualified lawyer, having worked in private practice and in-house in London and Hong Kong for 9 years before joining the insurance industry. 

Gavin O’Flaherty, Partner, Eversheds Sutherland, Dublin 
Gavin is a Partner in the Corporate Department of Eversheds Sutherland and has extensive transactional experience over 18 years. He has an extensive practice area in advising on corporate law, mergers and acquisitions, corporate reorganisations, venture capital and private equity investments. Within his general corporate and M&A practice Gavin has a particular sectoral focus on advising emerging, technology, agri-food and healthcare companies.Gavin also acts for large foreign corporates on their Irish legal needs such as Virtus Health, Pollen Street Capital and Avery Dennison and also to Irish corporates such as Arachas Corporate Brokers and Planet Payment. As part of his technology practice, Gavin acts on behalf of a number of high potential emerging and start-up companies across all stages of their corporate development such as ChannelSight Limited, Pilot Photonics and Bio-Marine Ingredients. Gavin extensively advises on foreign direct investment into Ireland and is currently advising a number of US companies and venture capital houses on their investments into the Irish market. Gavin also works closely with our aviation finance practice who he supports along with his existing work with clients in the area such as Shannon Engine Support Limited and Delta Airlines. Gavin has qualified from the Irish Taxation Institute as a Chartered Tax Adviser and uses his tax and legal expertise to work closely with our tax group in advising on corporate restructurings/reorganisations and also on the tax effects of corporate transactions and investments into Ireland.

Suzanne Kearney, Professional Support Lawyer, Arthur Cox 
Suzanne is a professional support lawyer in the Corporate M&A Group at Arthur Cox. She is a technical expert with a particular focus on company law and corporate governance, and keeps colleagues and clients updated on relevant legal, regulatory and commercial developments. She also manages education programmes (internal and client), authors technical papers and news bulletins, provides counsel to colleagues, develops precedents and practice notes and maintains the internal knowledge bank. Suzanne has significant experience in the areas of public and private mergers and acquisitions, equity capital markets and corporate reorganisations.

Denise Daly, Client Technology Lawyer, A&L Goodbody
Denise is a lawyer in A&L Goodbody's dedicated Client Technology team which works on delivering innovative processes and technology to their clients. Prior to this Denise worked in Litigation and Dispute Resolution in ALG, advising on a broad range of contentious commercial matters, particularly financial services and real estate litigation, as well as high value schemes of arrangement and capital restructurings.  Denise also has in-house experience, working with technology companies such as Stripe and MongoDB. This in-house experienced included advising on privacy and data protection law, regulatory matters, employment law issues and negotiating commercial agreements and software licences.

Paula Fearon, Project Services Group, McCann FitzGerald
Paula heads McCann FitzGerald’s Project Services Group, a team of qualified lawyers and technical experts who specialise in large scale document review projects. Paula qualified as a solicitor in 2003 and having spent many years as a commercial litigator in the firm, she has built up an extensive knowledge of ediscovery, disclosures, investigations and document analysis.  Applying this expertise, Paula joined the Project Services Group in 2016 where her work also now includes due diligence projects, loan sales, contract reviews and data access requests. Paula is an experienced people manager overseeing  a number of large multi-disciplinary teams within the Project Services Group. Paula advises on document collection strategy, document review protocols, workflows and processes.  She is an experienced project manager and coordinates large-scale projects from document identification and preservation stage through to production. 

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