With the investment funds world now coming to grips with the prospect of greater regulations, more challenging fundraising and increased investor scrutiny, Iain McMurdo and David Marshall of Maples and Calder take a look at recent trends and developments in the offshore investment funds sphere as exemplified by the Cayman Islands; and take stock of certain legislative developments due to be passed into law.

Who’s Who Legal spoke to Alain Fernández, Chief Operating Officer at G2 Capital Partners LLP, a leading asset management company based in London, to find out more about the company’s recent activities and the economic developments in European funds markets.

Jason Glover and Tom Bell of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP explore the increasingly creative fund structures developed to deal with the decline in private equity fundraising in the past five years.

The International Who’s Who of Private Funds Lawyers has brought together three of the leading practitioners in the world to discuss fund activity, proposed regulatory and legislative changes affecting fund markets and the the difficulties that funds lawyers face in the future.

Rod Palmer and Paul Farrell of Walkers evaluate recent developments in the offshore funds markets.

In this section we analyse the findings of our research in greater depth to identify the firms and practitioners who stand out worldwide. The investment and hedge funds powerhouse, Maples and Calder tops the tables with an impressive 15 listings, followed by Debevoise & Plimpton and SJ Berwin LLP with 14 inclusions each.

With the benefit of over 15 years of research and tens of thousands of voted from clients and private practitioners, Who’s Who Legal takes a closer look at shifts in the legal marketplace and developing trends and activity, worldwide.

With the benefit of over 14 years of research and tens of thousands of votes from clients and private practitioners, Who’s Who Legal takes a closer look at developing trends in the private funds legal marketplace worldwide.

In this section we analyse the findings of our research in greater depth to identify the firms and practitioners who stand out worldwide.

Who’s Who Legal interviewed hundreds of lawyers active in this practice area during the research for this publication and the vast majority were in agreement over the continuing harsh climate for the funds industry.

Over the course of our independent research, we have identified 328 leading private funds lawyers in 38 countries. The most highly regarded individuals and firms are outlined here and recent high-profile moves within the community are also shown.

We identify 57 of the leading banking and finance lawyers in nine jurisdictions in the following chapter, with Russia, Belarus and Ukraine the best-represented nations.

We identify the leading firms and individuals in the field of private funds law.

The market has been behaving atypically recently and many of the lawyers we have interviewed are relishing the challenging and interesting workload as the focus of private funds practices shifts to accomodate new trends.

California supports a diverse commercial ecosystem from technology start-ups in Silicon Valley to multinational corporations and within this diverse climate thrives the largest number of hedge funds outside New York, Connecticut and Dallas, according to the journal InvestmentNews.