Writing

Cut the Crap.

Named instruments. Real rulings. The hard question, asked from the high ground. This is the long-form home; the briefing sends the highlights to your inbox.


Impact · Sample

Sixteen years on, social impact bonds are still a rounding error.

Were the sceptics right — or have we never actually tried? What the outcomes data, and the contracts behind it, really show.

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Sustainable finance · №1

The step-up nobody pays.

Sustainability-linked bonds promise a coupon penalty for missing the target. The issuer that invented the instrument missed — and what it paid, and what the call schedules and observation dates actually say, is the whole story.

Read in the briefing →
Legal AI · Sample

The demo that never fails, and the matter that does.

Why legal-AI tools shine in the sales call and stumble on your file — and how to test one honestly before you buy.

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The paper trail

The shelf.

Before the briefing there were the books: six volumes of structured finance law, written from inside the market — two of them mid-crisis. The scepticism has a paper trail.

2009 · Kluwer Law International

Structured Finance: On from the Credit Crunch — The Road to Recovery

Written while the market was still smoking: what securitisation should keep, and what it had coming. International Banking & Finance Law Series, vol. 10.

2008 · Kluwer Law International

Securitization Law and Practice: In the Face of the Credit Crunch

The documents behind the crisis, read as documents — finished as the crisis was making the case. International Banking & Finance Law Series, vol. 8.

2007 · with Paul U. Ali · Kluwer

Innovations in Securitisation — Yearbook 2007

The market at full speed, chapter by chapter — including the structures that would later need explaining.

2006 · with Paul U. Ali · Kluwer

Innovations in Securitisation — Yearbook 2006

Practitioners from across the global market on where securitisation was heading — documentation, regulation, Basel.

2005 · with Paul U. Ali · Kluwer

Securitisation of Derivatives and Alternative Asset Classes

Synthetics, insurance risk and alternative assets — the frontier before it was fashionable.

2004 · with Paul U. Ali · LawBook Co

Synthetic, Insurance and Hedge Fund Securitisations

A guide to structuring innovative securitisations — synthetic risk transfer, before the acronyms went mainstream.