Tolek Petch was born in England and was educated in the United States and France before studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University where he received a first class honours degree in 1990.  Following admission as a solicitor in England and Wales in 1996 he obtained a masters degree in law, also at Oxford University.  After over 24 years practice as a solicitor at a magic circle law firm Tolek decided to open his own practice as a freelance solicitor.

Tolek is fluent in English, French, Norwegian and Greek.

Practice Areas

Tolek has a wide non-contentious practice including financial regulation, banking (especially prudential regulation), investment firms, insolvency law, contract law, equity, public and private international law, EU law, and international trade law.  From 2016 to 2021 he advised extensively on the legal implications of Brexit for private sector and government clients.

Financial Regulation

Examples of his work include:

● Advice for a UK headquartered global bank on various structured finance and trade finance transactions to achieve regulatory compliance as well as capital efficiency. This included external training for members of the structured finance team. Advice on simultaneous Dodd-Frank and EMIR compliance.

● Advice on AIFMD compliance for UK and overseas funds.

● Advising banks and investment firms on compliance with PRA/FCA rules, including making representations to regulators, passporting issues, etc. This included reviewing and advising on prospective UK and EU legislation like CRR II and the EMIR refit regulation.

● Securing UK authorization of a Belgian-based recognized clearing house, including drafting the rules, negotiating with regulators and giving a legal enforceability opinion. Co-ordinating and reviewing legal opinions on the same from several jurisdictions.

● Public affairs work on behalf of a US insurance company and securing a change to the EU rules on unfunded credit risk mitigation to ensure that the client’s insurance product would be recognised in the UK and EU.

● Creating a novel core Tier 1 capital instrument for a global UK bank during the 2007/8 financial crisis. Participating in European Banking Authority consultations on regulatory capital.

● Advice on FCA rules for banks and investment firms. This includes disclosure and transparency rules, AML/CTF compliance and sanctions compliance.

● Preparing a report for a global bank on Iranian sanctions violations. Extensive advice on Iraqi, Libyan, Egyptian and Russian sanctions, including current EU and UK sanctions imposed as a result of the 2022 war in Ukraine.

● Applications for waivers from consolidated supervision for investment fund groups in the context of M&A transactions (e.g. the goodwill deduction) under CRR and Basel III.

● Advice for a Nordic bank on the legal implications of negative interest rates under the ISDA Master Agreements. General advice on ISDA documentation including the Master Agreements and credit derivative definitions. Speaking at an ISDA conference on EU law.

● Advice for an ICSD on the English law aspects of clearing and settlement, as well as custody.  Providing detailed and reasoned legal opinions on the enforceability and compliance of custody arrangements entered into by the same. This involved detailed consideration of English contract law, regulatory and insolvency law including the EU Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive and the Banking Act 2009. Advice on banking union and the Single Resolution Mechanism regulation. Attending many conferences on EU law, including the XXVII FIDE conference on banking union in Budapest.

● Advising central securities depositaries in various EU jurisdictions on passporting issues under the EU CSDR regulation, as well as under the UK Uncertificated Securities Regulations 2001

● Advice on the optimal structure for banks from a regulatory perspective in the context of M&A transactions.

● Advice on FinTech and emerging technology with a focus on blockchain/distributed ledger technology, including the treatment of crypto-assets and smart contracts under English law.  Drafting a submission to, and appointed as a specialist advisor by, the LawTech Delivery Panel in connection with its Legal Statement on crypto-assets and smart contracts chaired by Sir Geoffrey Vos, Chancellor (2019).

● Advice on insider dealing, market manipulation, market abuse, fraud, theft, false accounting and cognate offences.

Banking

● Advising the UK Government on the recapitalization of RBS and Lloyd’s Banking Group following the 2008 financial crisis in a wide variety of areas including commenting on and marking up documents as well as helping draft the UK Government guarantee scheme.

● Advising the UK Government on the design and regulatory treatment of the UK Asset Protection Scheme entered into by RBS in 2009.

● Advice on restructuring and insolvency of EU banks including the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive, the Single Resolution Mechanism and the UK Banking Act 2009 (including its application to non-EU, non-UK banks). Advice on recapitalisation of the Portuguese banking sector following the global financial crisis as well as the legal implications of the resolution of Banco Espirito Santo on bondholders.

Corporate and Commercial

● Advice on a wide range of issues under English company law, including companies and bodies corporate.  This has included the issue of shares, prospectus requirements, the PSC regime, directors’ duties, whether a director could be removed for breach of fiduciary duty for making public statements detrimental to the company, advice on the scope of the objects of a company’s memorandum of association, interpretation of companies’ articles of association, and the legal categorisation of foreign legal entities for the purposes of English corporate law including those established under Jersey and Delaware law. Advice on the treatment of cell companies under English law, including insolvency law.

● Drafting and advising on commercial contracts (whether governed by English or foreign law).

Equity/Fiduciary Law

● Advice for clients on express and constructive trusts in a commercial context, including for liability dishonest assistance and knowing receipt.

● Advice for various corporates on the English law of restitution, including tracing, and bringing personal and proprietary restitutionary claims and remedies.

● Advice on the scope and nature of fiduciary duties in England, including the circumstances where a fiduciary duty arises, whether it has been broken, and remedies for breach of fiduciary duty including account of profits, rescission and equitable compensation.

● Advising the trustees of a potentially insolvent pension scheme on the remedies available against the directors and third parties in connection with apprehended misapplication by the directors of pension fund assets.

Securitisation

● Reviewing and commenting on securitisation documents.

● Preparing reasoned regulatory-compliant true sale opinions considering all relevant English insolvency proceedings.

● Advising on regulatory aspects of warehousing arrangements pre-securitisation.

● Advice on EU and Basel III rules on simple and transparent securitisations, as well as the regulatory capital treatment.

Insolvency Law

● Detailed advice on English insolvency law including providing reasoned legal opinions on the application of insolvency law to various types of entity, including companies incorporated by royal charter, and different types of proceedings. Liaising with foreign lawyers on the application of foreign insolvency proceedings in respect of English entities.

Public and Private International Law

● Advice on commercial aspects of English private international law including contracts, torts, restitution, insolvency, jurisdiction and the enforcement of foreign judgments, including drafting reasoned legal opinions on the same for global banks and corporates.

● Advising on human rights law (as applied in England) for English-incorporated corporates, including the right to private property under the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, in the context of the Labour Party’s proposals in the 2019 election campaign for widespread nationalization.

● Advice on international investment law in the context of expropriation/nationalization under bilateral investment treaties, including possible group reorganizations to obtain the benefit of protection under UK bilateral investment treaties.

● Advice on whether suggested UK legislation is in breach of public international law or relevant international treaties, and possible remedies for companies or individuals of such breaches.

Other

● Advice to banks, investment firms and corporates on a wide variety of aspects of EU law, including the primary EU Treaties (Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and Treaty on European Union), internal market directives, regulations, the interpretation of EU law and remedies. Advice on State liability for breach of EU law.

● Advice on European economic and monetary union, including the prohibition in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union on monetary financing of the state by the national central bank, and the practicalities for one or more countries in the Euro Zone to abandon the euro and revert to a national currency, sovereign default and the international law of capital and exchange controls.

● Advice on aspects of international trade law (World Trade Organization law and Free Trade Agreements).  Advice to the UK Government on the most favoured nation clause under the GATT and GATS as well as advice on mutual recognition agreements and customs unions.

● Advice on the legal aspects of Brexit including detailed advice to corporates and financial institutions on all aspects of the Brexit process, including WTO rules and tariffs in the event of a “no deal”, dispute resolution, current issues concerning the Appellate Body, and the national security exception under the GATT.

● Advice in connection with the 2015 ESM loan to Greece.

Professional Bodies

Tolek has served on various ad hoc committees established by the Financial Markets Law Committee, and is a member of its Sovereign Debt Scoping Forum.

Publications

Tolek has published extensively in the areas of financial regulation, EU law, private international law, and the law of economic and monetary union.

Articles

Chinese Walls (1999) 58(3) C.J.L. 485

Substance and Procedure (2005) 121 L.Q.R. 485

Oakley v. Animal and the Limits of Delegated Legislation (2005) 20(9) J.I.B.L.R. 405

The Investment Advisor as Constructive Trustee (2006) 21(7) J.I.B.L.R. 377

The Rome II Regulation: an Update (2006) 21(8) J.I.B.L.R. 449; (2006) 21(9) J.I.B.L.R. 509

Relying on Commission Decisions (2007) 123 L.Q.R. 186

Reforming Regulatory Capital: the European Response to the Financial Crisis (2009) 24(10) B.J.B.L. & F.L. 603

The Compatibility of Outright Monetary Transactions with EU Law (2013) 7(1) L. & F.M.L.R. 13

NML v. Argentina in an English Legal Setting (2014) C.M.L.J. 9(3) 266

The Treatment of Asymmetric Jurisdiction Clauses in Financial Contracts in France and England (2016) Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 313

Why are Banks Subject to Prudential Regulation? (2022) 37 J.I.B.L.R. 445

Judicial Review and the ECB: Quo Vadis? (2023) 38 J.I.B.L.R. 351; (2023) 38 J.I.B.L.R.393

Crypto is Property (2025) 40 J.I.B.L.R. 93; (2025) 40 J.I.B.L.R. 130; (2025) 40 J.I.B.L.R. 169; (2025) 40 J.I.B.L.R. 210

Contributions to books

Civil Liability for Money Laundering in R Fox and B Kingsley (ed.s), City and Financial, 2004, 2nd ed., 2009

Chapter 28 on Takeovers, Annotated Companies Legislation, Oxford University Press, 1st ed. 2007, 2nd ed. 2012, 3rd ed. 2013

International Initiatives (with J Putnis) in J Putnis (ed.), Banking Regulation Review, various editions including 14th ed., 2023

Book

Legal Implications of the Euro Zone Crisis, Wolters Kluwer, AH Alphen aan der Rijn, 2014