Gilles Athaw is a partner and heads the Banking & Finance practice of our Mauritius office.

Cumulating over 18 years’ experience in the field of corporate and commercial law, Gilles has advised a significant number of financial institutions and corporations, focusing mainly on cross border financing, corporate structuring, Mergers and Acquisitions and IPO’s.

He has an LLB(Hons) degree from the University of Buckingham and a Post Graduate Diploma in Law from the City University. Gilles also holds a certificate of competency in Cryptocurrency and Disruption from The London School of Economics.

Relevant Experience

• Advising mainly financial institutions on the cross-border financing ranging from real estate, hospitality, ship financing and telecoms, to general financing.
• Advising Real Estate Investment Funds and similarly structured vehicles on specific property acquisition, structuring and legal documentation.
• Advising Nasdaq listed tech companies on contractual and regulatory fintech related matters.
• Advising on Mergers & Acquisition transactions (including inbound and outbound acquisition of minority/majority stake in target company).
• Assisting corporates (start-ups, SME’s and listed corporates) on their general company law matters including:
• Contract review
• Data protection
• Employment related matters

Awards

• IFRL1000’s Financial and Corporate Guide rated Gilles as Highly Regarded for his work in Capital markets, Restructuring and insolvency, Banking, Financial restructuring, Project Finance and M&A, particularly within the Financial Services sector for nine consecutive years (2013 to 2022).

• East Africa: IP Quarterly Newsletter – Q3 2023
• Mauritius: A case analysis on ‘trade names and trademarks’
• Mauritius: Change of Key Repo Rate to Key Rate
• East Africa: IP East Africa Quarterly Newsletter – Q3 2022
• Mauritius: FSC publishes guidelines and fees for virtual assets and initial token offerings
• Mauritius: 20 years of The Companies Act – what’s next?
• Mauritius: Bowmans successfully advises a leading commercial bank in Mauritius on its LIBOR transition
• Mauritius: An overview of the new regulatory framework of virtual assets and initial token offerings
• Mauritius: National Payment Systems regulations – key features