Search guides & insights
Wayne Atkinson

Wayne Atkinson 

Partner | Guernsey

Corporate, Finance & Funds

  • Wayne Atkinson is easily approachable and responsive. He provides an amazing service.
    Chambers UK 2023
  • I would recommend Wayne Atkinson unreservedly. He provides excellent advice, is very responsive and takes a commercial approach.
    Legal 500
  • Credible across all areas
    Client feedback
  • Always proactive and excellent at balancing legal requirements with the needs and wishes of the client
    Client feedback
  • Wayne and Gareth managed to create a structure and framework from scratch and get a regulator to approve it. Their willingness to take on this piece of work and execute it makes them stand out.
    Legal 500 (UK) 2023
  • Extremely knowledgeable but not protective of that knowledge...very approachable and always willing to assist
    Client feedback
  • Wayne Atkinson is very responsive and understands clients’ businesses.
    Legal 500
  • Responsive and innovative
    Legal 500
  • Wayne Atkinson has a particularly pragmatic approach backed up by an in depth knowledge and excellent coordination and communication skills.
    Legal 500 (UK) 2023
  • Wayne Atkinson is very responsive and understands clients’ businesses.
    Legal 500 2022
  • Great service, quick to respond
    Client feedback
  • Incredibly helpful.
    Client
  • Always proactive, excellent at balancing legal requirements with the needs and wishes of the client
    Client feedback
  • Wayne Atkinson is a very thoughtful lawyer who sees a big picture without neglecting minutiae. Very experienced.
    Legal 500 (UK) 2023
  • Great technical knowledge, responsive and affable
    Legal 500
  • He's a good technical lawyer. I have found he delivers efficient, focused points of advice, which is exactly what you want.
    Chambers & Partners 2022

Wayne heads up Collas Crill's Guernsey Corporate, Finance & Funds team. He works with a broad range of regulated entities and investment funds on fundraising, transaction and investment structuring, commercial contracts and mergers and acquisitions. As one of the leaders of Collas Crill's risk and regulatory team he also regularly advises businesses on regulatory compliance including money-laundering issues, listing rules requirements, competition law, data protection, employment law and Guernsey financial services regulation more generally.

"'It's my job to help clients achieve their objectives with as little unnecessary cost, stress and risk as possible.'"

Wayne has also built considerable expertise in assisting company boards and activist shareholders in relation to contentious general meetings and associated issues arising out of investor actions.

A regular speaker at seminars and conferences in relation to company law, regulatory and fund matters, Wayne is well known for his down-to-earth plain speaking approach to explaining complex legal and regulatory issues.

Prior to joining Collas Crill in 2009, Wayne trained and qualified as a corporate lawyer with Herbert Smith in London working primarily in the firm's investment funds and regulatory team. Following this he spent a number of years in the British Virgin Islands advising on a range of investment funds and general corporate transactions.

Wayne is listed as a Next Generation Partner in Legal 500, and in band 4 in Chambers and Partners UK 2023.

My services
Alderney & Sark Legal Services
+
-

Collas Crill's experienced Guernsey team regularly advise on the laws of both Sark and Alderney in addition to Guernsey itself.

Banking & Finance
+
-

Banks today face an ever increasing raft of challenges, both regulatory and commercial, as well as competition for deals from non-bank lenders and alternative funders. We provide our banking clients with a comprehensive service on- and off-transaction, including our plain English precedents for their business. We help our clients keep up with the changing landscape in order to remain competitive in the market place whilst delivering quality service to their own customers. Our clients focus on relationship banking and we work hard to support them in doing so. We also advise P2P lenders and invoice discounters on their lending and security arrangements, and their documentation.

Business Relocation
+
-

For businesses, a relocation to the Channel Islands can bring significant advantages – Guernsey and Jersey's world leading financial services regulation and company laws are modern, business friendly and practical; a huge benefit for businesses in that sector. An added benefit of our financial services background for all businesses is the depth of highly skilled service providers on-island ready to assist your business. Guernsey and Jersey is ready to roll-out the welcome mat to new businesses and we're ideally placed to make introductions to the right people.

Corporate Advisory
+
-

With a depth of multi-jurisdictional experience our offices in BVI, Cayman, Guernsey, Jersey, London and Singapore, we ensure that advice is provided in the context of other key global offshore centres and with a knowledge of the bigger, global picture. Our clients appreciate our pro-active attitude to providing sensible user-friendly advice, our accuracy and honesty in our approach to pricing matters, and our senior level involvement in all matters to ensure smooth progress and client satisfaction. In an increasingly complex, competitive and more tightly regulated market, we'll make sure your business or commercial venture reaches its full potential.

Employment, Pensions & Immigration
+
-

We understand that the effective and efficient management of employment matters is not only an important risk management tool, but can add value to your business in the long term. We also understand that today's employment environment is more litigious than ever and not all issues can be mitigated or resolved. The stakes are often the highest in these cases, which is why our approach is to resolve conflicts in the most practical and sensitive manner – and always with the client's needs at the forefront.

Investment Funds, Private Equity & Venture Capital
+
-

Our fund specialists offer advice on all aspects relating to the establishment, authorisation and structuring of funds and related investment vehicles. We have particular expertise acting for emerging managers who are building their business and acting for institutional investors, including acting for private equity funds and sovereign wealth funds on joint venture and fund investments, as well as planning their internal corporate structures. We provide a highly personalised service working with our clients and their onshore counsel to build in depth relationships over the long term.

Relocate to the Channel Islands
+
-

Our team is ideally placed to advise on and project manage such a relocation, advising on everything from company migrations, housing licences and real estate matters through to introductions to other service providers and complementary local businesses. Some of our people have first-hand experience of moving to the island themselves, affording them a unique insight into the challenges and opportunities you are likely to face.

Risk & Regulatory
+
-

Collas Crill's multi-disciplinary approach to providing Risk & Regulatory services ensures that every aspect of our clients' businesses is covered. By drawing on the skills and experience of a highly experienced team of lawyers with expertise from across the firm, we are able to deal with all legal compliance issues that could affect your business, whether contentious or non-contentious. The assistance we are able to provide ranges from strategic matters to specific operational issues.

Insight 10 Feb 2023

New VASP regulations in Guernsey

The Guernsey Financial Services Commission published its final draft of the Lending, Credit and Finance Rules and Guidance, 2023 (the "New Rules") on Thursday 19 January...

Insight 3 Feb 2023

New Guernsey business regulations

The Guernsey Financial Services Commission published its final draft of the Lending, Credit and Finance Rules and Guidance, 2023 (the "New Rules") on Thursday 19 January...

Insight 26 Jan 2023

New LFC regulations in Guernsey

The Guernsey Financial Services Commission published its final draft of the Lending, Credit and Finance Rules and Guidance, 2023 (the "New Rules") on Thursday 19 January...

News 20 Jan 2023

GFSC issues LCF Law legislation

The Guernsey Financial Services Commission (GFSC) has published its feedback paper (19 Jan 2022) on the consultation around the Lending, Credit & Finance Rules, Guidance...

Life & Careers 8 Dec 2022

Moot win for Ladies' College

The Ladies' College has won this year's Collas Crill Guernsey Moot. Sixth formers Lauren de Jersey and Rosie de Carteret took on Arwen Kernaghan and Isabelle Wood from the...

Life & Careers 2 Dec 2022

Collas Crill Guernsey final

The Grammar School will face the Ladies' College in the Collas Crill Guernsey Moot Final 2022. Arwen Kernaghan and Isabelle Wood from the Grammar School, and Lauren de...

Showing 6 of 139 Results

Load more
Event 5 Apr 2023

Directors' Duties Conference

Collas Crill invites you to join us at our Directors' Duties Conference, where the focus will be on Shareholder Activism.  Join Partners David O'Hanlon, Wayne Atkinson and...

Event 7 Feb 2023
Past Event

ESG - truth or consequences

Wayne Atkinson is speaking at the first session of the GTA University Centre's Compliance CPD Series 2023. The series offers a fresh new look at challenges that are being...

Event 14 Jul 2022
Past Event

IoD Jersey ESG event

Wayne Atkinson is speaking at the IoD Jersey Branch’s latest panel discussion which seeks to not only discuss how environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting and...

Event 7 Oct 2021
Past Event

2021 Natural Capital Finance & Inve

Partner Wayne Atkinson is speaking at the 2021 Natural Capital Finance & Investment virtual conference, which this year focuses on green finance for regenerative...

Event 24 Sep 2021
Past Event

Cryptoassets vs sustainability

Join Wayne Atkinson and fellow experts for a discussion of cryptoassets through the lens of sustainability, hosted by BPP. Cryptoassets, such as currencies, have seen a...

Event 23 Sep 2021
Past Event

How can boards ensure authentic ESG

Wayne Atkinson, Partner and Head of Guernsey's Corporate, Finance & Funds Team, is speaking at the Governance Guernsey 2021 conference on 23 September. Organised by the...

Showing 6 of 35 Results

Load more