LONDON, Sept. 18 LAWFUEL – Law News, Law Jobs — Sidley Austin in London, with
assistance from Sidley Austin LLP in New York, has acted for Washington
Mutual Bank (“WaMu”) in establishing the first covered bond programme under
U.S. law. As transaction counsel, Sidley has worked with WaMu, in
consultation with their arrangers, to devise a structure under existing
principles of banking, insolvency and related areas of U.S. law. Like the
UK and the Netherlands, the United States does not have specific statutes
or regulation in place to authorise the issuance of covered bonds. The
structure is also a departure from the UK covered bond model (e.g., the
programmes of HBOS Treasury Services plc and Northern Rock plc) because of
differences between English law and applicable law in the United States.
The team at Sidley Austin was led by Michael Durrer, a partner in the
London office.
Sidley Austin LLP is one of the world’s largest full-service law firms,
with more than 1,600 lawyers practicing in 15 U.S. and international cities
including Beijing, Brussels, Frankfurt, Geneva, Hong Kong, London,
Shanghai, Singapore and Tokyo. In 2006, Sidley was named to Legal Business’
Global Elite, their designation for “the 15 finest law firms in the world.”
