Austin is a senior associate in the Financial Regulation Group. Austin advises on Irish and European financial services regulation, with a particular focus on FinTech.

Austin has experience advising a wide variety of financial institution clients on diverse financial regulation matters. He has particular experience in FinTech regulatory matters, including digital payments and crypto-assets. Before joining Arthur Cox, Austin worked in the European Commission, where he assisted with digital finance issues such as the MiCA Regulation. Austin trained as a solicitor at a Top 5 Dublin law firm and previously practiced in that firm’s financial regulation group.

Austin holds an LLM in Law & Finance from the University of Amsterdam and in 2023 published an article on the MiCA Regulation in the Irish Journal of European Law.

Relevant Experience

• Advising on regulatory authorisation applications for various financial institutions including banks, electronic money firms, investment firms and fund service providers.
• Advising on perimeter issues and ongoing compliance for various financial institutions including banks, crypto-asset service providers, e-money institutions, investment firms, payment institutions and retail credit firms.
• Advising on financial crime matters, including global anti-financial crime frameworks, reporting obligations and sanctions derogation applications to the Central Bank of Ireland.
• Advising on matters related to financial institution M&A and asset transfers, including due diligence, deal structures and change of control notifications. Transactions included the acquisition by the Apex Group of Bank of America Custodial Services (Ireland) Limited and a US private equity fund’s bid to acquire an Irish bank.
• Enforcement investigations carried out by the Central Bank of Ireland including investigations relating to consumer protection requirements and anti-money laundering legislation.
• Regulatory reports and legal inventories prepared for the compliance and risk teams of global banks.
• Legal research and stakeholder consultation to support legislative proposals from the European Commission. Assisting policy formation for digital finance issues and preparing political briefings on financial regulation matters.