Clifford Chance

Clifford Chance advises Deutsche Börse - HQLAᵡ innovative new DLT platform for frictionless settlement in the securities lending market

International law firm Clifford Chance has advised HQLAᵡ and Deutsche Börse on their jointly-developed distributed ledger technology (DLT) solution for frictionless collateral swaps in the securities lending market. The platform launched with live transactions executed by Commerzbank, Credit Suisse and UBS on the Eurex Repo F7-trading system.

The successful launch of the platform is an important milestone for the implementation of DLT in the securities lending market and demonstrates the efficiencies this technology can provide, with Clifford Chance continuing to be at the centre of these important developments. Over 15 other market participants are currently engaged in different phases of onboarding to the HQLAᵡ platform.

Nick Short, COO of HQLAᵡ, commented, “Clifford Chance has played an instrumental role as our trusted adviser in the legal build of our operating model, and we very much look forward to our continued collaboration as we expand the product scope and jurisdictional reach of our platform.”

The Clifford Chance team, who ensured the technology aligned with existing legal principles, was led by partners Steve Jacoby in Luxembourg and Jeremy Walter and André Duminy in London. All three are part of Clifford Chance's market leading global fintech practice, which is ranked in Band 1 by Legal 500.

The in-house lawyers supporting this project were Ralph Beyer and Dr. Claus Mössle from Deutsche Börse as well as Matthew Benz from HQLAᵡ.