Assistant General Counsel – Product and Regulatory Legal

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United Kingdom, +4 more countries.

📋 Description

• Provide senior legal counsel to European leadership regarding new products, licensing frameworks, and regulatory strategies.

• Take ownership of cross-functional legal advice for EU product launches, from the initial discovery phase through design, launch, and subsequent iterations.

• Offer guidance on regulatory scope and classification pertaining to MiFID II, MiFIR, MiCA, EMIR, payment services, electronic money, and banking regulations.

• Advise on payment and electronic money solutions, including card and account offerings, safeguarding measures, open banking, and account-access obligations.

• Provide counsel on EU banking issues, including partnerships with banks, sponsor-bank arrangements, deposit-taking, lending, capital requirements, custody, prime brokerage, and financing.

• Monitor and analyze developments in EU legislation and supervision, and engage in consultations and industry association initiatives.

• Draft and negotiate terms and conditions for clients.

• Manage EU outside counsel engagements, including defining scope, overseeing costs, and obtaining necessary approvals.

• Mentor junior lawyers, establish standards for plain-English and risk-based legal advice, and support the Regulatory Legal team.

• Utilize AI-assisted tools for regulatory analysis, drafting, matter tracking, and self-service legal resources.

• Provide counsel on AML/CTF, the Transfer of Funds Regulation, market abuse, conduct, outsourcing, operational resilience, and DORA.

• Lead or supervise workstreams related to EU licensing, authorization, and variations, including interactions with regulators.

⛳️ Requirements

• Qualified lawyer admitted in Ireland, England and Wales, or any other European Union Member State.

• Minimum of 15 years' post-qualification experience in financial services regulatory law.

• Background in a regulated financial services institution or at a leading law firm serving such clients.

• Ideally, experience in-house or direct product counselling.

• Extensive, up-to-date knowledge of several relevant regulatory domains, with significant expertise in at least two: MiFID II/MiFIR, MiCA, EU payment services and electronic money regulation, or EU banking regulation.

• Capacity to evaluate new products against overlapping regulatory frameworks and provide advice on classification and scope.

• Proven experience in managing relationships with senior regulators, including handling notifications, information requests, supervisory correspondence, and examinations.

• Familiarity with anti-money laundering, counter-terrorist financing, outsourcing, and operational resilience obligations, including DORA.

• Experience in instructing, supervising, and managing outside counsel expenses across various jurisdictions.

• Exceptional analytical, drafting, and organizational abilities.

• Capability to deliver clear, actionable guidance to non-lawyer stakeholders and senior management.

• Pragmatic and commercially accountable approach to legal and regulatory risks.

• Experience in mentoring or managing lawyers.

• Ability to operate independently in a fast-paced, remote working environment.

• Familiarity with AI tools such as Enterprise GPTs.

• Nice to have: experience with tokenized securities, the EU Distributed Ledger Technology Pilot Regime, EMIR, prime brokerage, securities financing, margin lending, institutional custody, UK cryptoasset regulation, corporate transaction regulatory matters, EU data protection and consumer protection laws, a second European language, and crypto/digital assets.

🏝️ Benefits

• Flexible remote work arrangement.

• Participation in using Kraken products is required upon joining.

• Commitment to equal opportunity employment.

• Consistent application of job-related skills or work-style assessments.

• Opportunity to collaborate with a globally distributed team.

• Ongoing applications are accepted unless a specific deadline is mentioned.