Martin Cook Partner

Martin is a technology and financial services lawyer, and is internationally recognised for his fintech and technology expertise. He leads the firm’s fintech practice.

Prior to Burges Salmon, Martin was General Counsel at WorldRemit (now Zepz), a leading international payments business, responsible for the legal, regulatory, data privacy, company secretarial and risk management functions. Previous in-house roles focussed on technology and fintech, including at Funding Circle as Global Head of Legal & Regulatory. Martin also worked at leading law firms where he advised significant financial institutions and corporates, and technology and private equity firms.

The myriad of issues arising in running a business aside, Martin has led large technology transactions, significant business transformation programmes and major regulatory change projects, obtained regulatory licences and advised on international expansion, product development and risk management. He has developed practical experience of governmental and regulatory engagement, including advocating for quality regulation to benefit both industry and consumers.

The UK Government appointed Martin as a founding member of the FinTech Delivery Panel, a body established to enhance the UK’s position as a global leader in the future of financial services.

Martin is recommended as a Global Leader in Fintech by Who’s Who Legal, the independent and comprehensively researched list of market leading lawyers globally. He is also ranked as “Band 1” for Fintech in Chambers & Partners’ independent legal directory. Martin is listed in Citywealth's 'Tech Top Ten', a list of the leading lawyers for technology entrepreneurs in the UK, USA and Switzerland.

Clients have commented that Martin “is very amenable and easy to work with”, “has a calm, analytical approach"  and “is very clear and pragmatic …  [making] it easy to understand what is a real risk and how to assess or mitigate it, which is a huge value add".

• Advising in relation to business expansion and growth: across different geographies (business lending, peer to peer lending and payments); by investment (strategic partnerships, M&A and equity investment); and by new business vertical (such as establishing a fund for lending).
• Advising FTSE 100 businesses in relation to business transformation, modernisation and digitisation, and also digital-first start-ups and scale-ups on their high growth trajectory. 
• Advising on ongoing compliance and the implementation of regulatory change projects, both sector specific (such as following the peer to peer lending review) and of general application (including GDPR).
• Advising on multiple applications for regulatory authorisation in the UK and internationally.
• Advising market segment leaders on product development and project execution through to successful product launch.
• Leading projects on the development of regulatory policy and strategy, including educating governmental and regulatory stakeholders – particularly in relation to peer to peer lending, payments and taxation.
• Significant experience of the full range of commercial and technology legal work, particularly platform solutions, proprietary software engineering, outsourced technology and business process solutions, strategically important commercial agreements and intellectual property exploitation.
• Advising in the context of business critical situations, including external investment (funding rounds and IPO) and during periods of business retrenchment (including divestments, corporate and organisational restructures and reputation management).
• Advising on the establishment and implementation of risk management and assurance functions for regulated businesses.