Legal Counsel - Financial Markets and Regulatory

Job description

The APAC Legal Team partners closely with domestic and international stakeholders to support our trading activities across the Asia-Pacific region from our Sydney office. Playing a pivotal role in enabling the firm’s success, providing strategic legal guidance, and ensuring regulatory excellence in a fast-paced, high-performance environment. As a Legal Counsel, you will report directly to the Senior Legal Counsel, APAC, and play a key role in advising on legal matters, supporting transactions, and managing corporate governance responsibilities for IMC in the region. You will work in close collaboration with our Trading and Technology teams, as well as Finance, HR, Corporate Development, Treasury, Risk, and Compliance, to drive business growth and operational excellence. You will also engage with our global legal counterparts in Hong Kong, Mumbai, Amsterdam, Chicago, and London, ensuring alignment and best practices across jurisdictions. This role offers a unique opportunity to make a direct impact on IMC’s global operations. **Your Core Responsibilities:** - Advise on financial services regulatory, corporate, and technology matters across the Asia Pacific region. - Coordination and negotiation of financial markets and trading agreements (e.g. prime brokerage agreements, give-up agreements). - Collaborating closely with APAC Compliance team and Trading desks to advise on financial markets licensing and marketing requirements across the APAC region, and responding to ongoing counterparty onboarding queries. - Ad hoc review of general commercial and technology contracts to support the trading business. - Build and maintain stakeholder relationships to work effectively at pace across the business. - Coordination with external counsel across APAC jurisdictions and IMC’s global legal teams, working through legal issues and proposing practical solutions for counterparty contracts. - Research and provide advice on various emerging legal and regulatory issues across APAC markets. - Review and update policies and procedures of IMC, identify areas for continuous improvement, as required. - Assist with corporate governance, including preparing for Board and Committee meetings of IMC’s corporate and charitable organisations in the APAC region. **Your Skills and Experience:** - Tertiary qualifications in Law and top academic credentials. - Admitted as a solicitor in Australia or another common law jurisdiction. - 6-9 years PQE gained at a leading law firm and in-house legal department within the financial services or technology sectors, with a track record of negotiating and executing transaction documentation. - Strong legal, regulatory review, drafting and negotiation skills in English. - Detailed understanding of the legal, regulatory and operational issues arising in financial markets. - Exposure to multiple APAC jurisdictions and key regional regulatory considerations, with a demonstrated ability to manage multi-jurisdictional regulatory matters. - Proven ability to manage contract negotiations and counterparty onboarding. - Working knowledge of Australian AML/CTF requirements and of sanctions regimes relevant to APAC trading. - Adept at using legal technology and leveraging AI tools and emerging technology to enhance productivity and streamline workflows. - Ability to work independently under tight deadlines, be organised and have excellent interpersonal skills. - Demonstrated ability to communicate complex legal issues effectively to a non-legal audience. - Additional language skills relevant to the APAC region are highly desirable. - Ability to work across different jurisdictions and time zones and occasional travel to other IMC offices and trading locations. **About Us** *IMC is a research-driven trading firm where quantitative modeling, machine learning, and engineering shape how modern markets are traded. A stabilizing force in markets since 1989, we provide liquidity across trading venues, delivering the best outcome in value and risk management to investors. Using our own technology and capital, we build proprietary systems and algorithms that operate across global markets. Our researchers, traders, and engineers work as a collective, combining rapid experimentation, advanced infrastructure, and real-time feedback to turn insight into execution and execution into advantage.*