Paul Schwartfeger

Paul accepts instructions on various financial services matters including providing early advice around issues such as whether the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) Perimeter Guidance has been breached and advising firms on the obtaining of regulatory approval in the UK.

Paul’s experience includes:

Acting for a corporate claimant in litigation following the defendant’s mis-selling of a business loan and related financial products and services.

Acting and advising claimants and defendants in claims for undisclosed commissions and unfair relationships

Advising a deferred payment provider on regulated credit and consumer debt arrangements.

Advising UK and non-UK firms on a range of compliance and regulatory issues including whether their activities fall to be regulated under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, Regulated Activities Order 2001, and Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II.

·       Advising entities on applications to the FCA seeking approval for Part IV permissions to become Approved Persons.

Paul is a leading junior in cryptoasset advice and recovery. He is well-versed on the regulatory and compliance requirements of virtual assets including non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and initial coin offering (ICO) drops, as well as the law as it relates to smart contracts, blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies.

Paul is regularly called upon to advise clients on the regulatory taxonomy of tokens and is known by clients for his sharp attention to the technical detail, which can be critical to determining whether a token falls to be regulated or not, and focus on providing actionable recommendations.

Paul’s experience includes:

Advising on the tokenisation of a property portfolio valued at over £400m and the development of an associated digital trading platform to ensure cryptoassets and other financial instruments traded on the platform satisfy regulatory requirements.

Advising on injunctive relief and the recovery of funds retained by a cryptocurrency trading and liquidity platform in breach of contract.

Advising on the design, development and technical implementation of staking protocols and related regulatory considerations for a novel class of cryptoasset and ICO.

Advising on an NFT sale for a popular massively multi-player online game.

Advising on the sale of virtual assets and virtual property in a metaverse gaming system.

Assisting and advising victims of crypto fraud in the recovery of their stolen funds.

Advising on crypto-payment, crypto-pension and crypto-lending schemes.

Paul has appeared as sole counsel in the High Court and County Court and has acted both for and against multinational corporations. He is also frequently instructed to advise and draft statements of case on a variety of commercial matters.

Paul regularly provides strategic legal and development advice to start-ups and established businesses alike, including by reviewing and drafting key company documentation such as shareholder agreements, company policies and business terms.

Paul’s experience includes:

Successfully defending an infringement action brought against a social media client for an alleged breach of intellectual property rights asserted in user-generated content (UGC).

Negotiating a successful eleventh-hour settlement for a client in a professional negligence dispute following a failed IT services delivery contract.

Successfully representing the respondent company in a debt claim which engaged parallel proceedings in multiple jurisdictions.

Advising on a complex shareholder dispute involving claims for breach of contract and allegations of fraud among six development companies spanning three countries.

Advising group companies on the availability and transfer of the intellectual property of a member of their corporate group during the member company’s insolvency and liquidation.

Successfully resisting an extension to a property freezing order made against a corporate client’s funds.

Acting for the defendant company in a claim brought against them under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.

Advising on a whistleblowing claim for unauthorised acts causing serious damage and misuse of data under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 and GDPR.

Advising on a claim for breach of contract, breach of confidence, breach of fiduciary duty and infringement of copyright for a company specialising in artificial intelligence technology. Paul’s knowledge of software development procedures and common licensing rights, including open-source licensing models, was key to developing the claim strategy.

Advising a global company on the transformation of its business from one of subsidiaries operating independently in domestic markets to a centralised, cloud-based service model, necessitating a review of its corporate structures and inter-group trading terms.

Representing petitioners, creditors and debtor companies in the winding-up court in the High Court, Chancery Division.

Regularly acting for clients, both at first instance and on appeal, in actions for breach of contract, misrepresentation, payment default, licensing and intellectual property rights violations, construction disputes and aviation law claims, among other matters.

Paul’s data and privacy practice includes matters before domestic courts and tribunals involving actions for breach of data protection laws including the UK GDPR, for breach of confidence and for the misuse of private information.

Paul regularly advises clients on data models, data transfers and data compliance, including for data storage systems incorporating blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies.

Paul’s experience includes:

Successfully defending against a claim for breach of the Data Protection Acts 1998 and 2018 following the disclosure of customer financial data to a credit referencing agency.

Successfully acting on behalf of the defendant in a claim brought against them for the misuse of an individual’s personal data and image rights online.

Securing a successful outcome from an investigation by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) into the lawfulness of a UK facial recognition company’s processing of biometric data.

Advising on the merits and remedies in a group action for the misuse of 400 celebrities’ personal data by analysing image rights contracts, data flows and data usage practices to identify potential data breaches and rights violations.

Advising on an injunction and on cross-jurisdictional enforcement issues for a defamation claim involving libellous posts made against a client on social media and other online channels.

Advising the claimants in an action for the misuse of their private information following the defendant’s unauthorised surveillance and recording of them.

Advising on a claim for breach of the UK GDPR and misuse of personal data following an employer’s surveillance of an employee and their communications without the employee’s knowledge or consent.

Advising on international data transfers engaging multiple data protection regimes and complex extraterritorial data controller relationships.

Advising on a representative action in a claim against a technology company for its unlawful processing of biometric data and unlawful use of identity recognition algorithms.

Paul has a growing contentious and non-contentious intellectual property (IP) practice, having appeared as sole counsel and advised on various IP matters including drafting property transfer, assignment and licensing agreements.

Paul’s experience includes:

Successfully defending an infringement action brought against a social media client for an alleged breach of intellectual property rights asserted in user-generated content (UGC).

Advising group companies on the availability and transfer of the intellectual property of a member of their corporate group during the member company’s insolvency and liquidation.

Assisting a technology client in the successful settlement of its dispute for passing off with an unrelated company whose registration of a domain name risked misleading the public.