Jennifer Donohue

Jennifer advises on transactions, including insurance-linked securities, fund structuring, longevity transfers, solvency issues, and also on decommissioning risk (in the energy, including nuclear, sectors.

• Advised on the £6.7 billion takeover of a large insurance firm and subsequent divestment of assets.
• Advised on more than 30 trades for a well-known investment bank in the insurance-linked securities sector, for all risk categories including mortality, longevity, catastrophe (cat bonds), and energy.
• Structuring swaps (some of 70 years’ duration) to de-risk pension scheme liability.
• Advised on fund setup for insurers and reinsurers for global flow deals using a consortium of collateral providers.
• Advised as part of the Insurance London Market Group on the design and development of insurance-linked securities law in the UK and the subsequent consultation with the London Stock Exchange for consideration of the instruments for listing.
• Advised on purchase of back books, closed books, and open books of business and subsequent consolidations and refinancing where appropriate.
• Advised a large insurer in longevity transfer for £1.8 billion of liabilities.
• Advised brokers and insurers on decommissioning risk in the oil, gas, and nuclear sectors.
• Advised UK brokers on setting up in the US.
• Advised a global vaccine alliance on liquidity and asset support for the rollout of Sars Cov 2 vaccine chain, necessitating an insurance factoring solution.
• Advising on complex Reinsurance arrangements for five superannuation schemes.
• Regulatory advice in several contexts including legal structuring to improve return on with profits book of business, authorisation, new consumer duty, senior managers regime, Appointed Representatives, and solvency.

Jennifer advises on takeovers, demutualisations, cross-border mergers and acquisitions, and private equity investments, acting for insurers, reinsurers, and international and state-owned enterprises.

• Advised a client in relation to a company takeover which was conducted with four other law firms, 24 staff and fee earners. This was one of the biggest transactions in the European market.
• Advised on the financing for the demutualisation of large listed life assurance company.
• Advised on the takeover work for a Chinese state-owned enterprise investing in a public company including all takeover panel documentation and discussions.
• Advised on the cross-border sale of a reinsurer to a US company.
• Advised on the cross-border merger of two insurance companies in the life sector.
• Advised a private equity fund on the acquisition of an insurance company.
• Advised on merger of P&I club participants.
• Advised a small satellite manufacturer on preparation of commercial documents for sale, purchase, and commissioning of satellites and in their payload and launch contracts with US Space X launch vehicle.

Jennifer advises on ESG on a transaction basis or on a stand-alone ESG analysis of the ESG requirements and regulations. She assists in the preparation of reports required by the regulations and strategic advice for projects.

• Advice to a large consolidator on integrating ESG factors into its investment decision-making process including adoption of thermal coal exclusions in its investment policies.
• Advised on several insurance linked securities trades for both banks and protection sellers in natural-perils and catastrophic-risk categories designed to accommodate increased levels of risk as a result of climate change.
• Advised on a Government White Paper for the transitional agenda from fossil fuels to renewables.
• Advised and assisted on the Mansion House Statement for the last Government (now being pursued by the current Government) to unlock pension assets to invest in the greener initiatives to grow the economy.
• Advised on the design of a Green bond that was both ESG-compliant and commercially attractive to encourage foreign governments and sovereign funds to invest in global insurance-linked securities in natural-perils and zoonotic-disease pandemics.

Because of her mathematics work, Jennifer advises on block chain, cyber risk, cryptocurrencies and cryptography, encryption, decryption, pattern recognition, AI, machine learning, and data normalisation.

• Advised on setting up a regulated crypto bank and cryptocurrency platforms.
• Worked on advisory elements of the Law Commission development of new personal property asset class for digital currencies.
• Advised a new startup on pegging digital currencies to an alternative asset class.
• Advised on a blockchain startup.
• Advised on the use of smart contracts in the insurance sector.
• Advised on new forms of data analysis and data analytics, data normalisation of different data taxonomy, including working on deep mining for digital currencies using super computers.
• Advised on large and complex risks for a trading client in the energy commodities sector using algorithms and machine learning technology.
• Worked to design a new life expectancy model using machine learning and network theory.

Jennifer advises financial institutions including insurance firms, brokers, banks, hedge funds, private equity, and startups.

• Advised on Constant Proportional Portfolio Insurance (CPPI), Variable Annuity Risk (VAR), and Value of In-Force (VIF) products.
• Advised on a range of hedge funds and private equity on varied investments and structures in the insurance sector.
• Worked upon risk analysis model for longevity risk, for Life & Longevity Markets Association and the Faculty and Institute of Actuaries.
• Advice to pension structures of various companies and trustees of schemes to optimise return on assets including utilising bulk annuity and transfer tools.
• Advised on the consequences of Solvency UK/ Basel 3.1 interaction on regulatory capital and balance sheets.
• Advised on an infrastructure platform for insurer lending in CMBS & CRE to meet regulatory requirements.
• Designed an alternative collateral arrangement to reduce banks’ asset management exposure to insurance risk and reduce insurers’ risk to counterparty (multibillion platform).
• Advised on design of trade receivables platform using insurance.
• Advised on numerous trades in insurance-linked securities in most risk classes including mortality and longevity for large banks, asset managers, and specific ILS funds.
• Advised on a major Cat bond project with South Korea and Taiwan.
• Advised on setting up an insurance-linked security fund for a private equity house.

Jennifer is a regenerative medicine expert. She advises startups developing novel therapeutic pathways for regenerative medicine and cutting-edge technologies (including gene therapy and brain cancers) on setup and funding rounds.

• Advice to university spinoffs on the legal aspects of setup and first- and second-stage funding rounds.
• Set up funds for a specific platform for investment in the bio-tech and bio-regenerative medicine sector.
• Advised a health cover firm on the changing developing life expectancy profiles and their consequent product development.
• Advised developing startups in bio-regenerative medicine on suitable setup vehicle and methods of raising capital.
• Prepared a policy paper for HMG on the development of bio-regenerative medicine to inform development of policy for HMG investment in the sector.
• Various trades in the life settlement space using cohorts as an asset class for investment and as collateral for loans.

Jennifer’s practice focuses on transactional and corporate and commercial matters in the marine and shipping sectors in both blue and brown water.

• Advised on the merger of two large P&I clubs.
• Structuring advice on the merger of two further clubs.
• Advised on the solvency of the International Group Pool and the use of bonds to support reserves.
• Comparative advice on the treatment by two different regulators of the use of equalisation reserves under regulatory solvency.
• Advised on the opening of a branch office of a P&I club in the UK.
• Designed a lending structure for residual value in Panamax and Ultramax bulk carriers.

Recognised in Chambers Fin Tech Guide 2024 for Cryptocurrency and Digital Assets

Recognised by The Legal 500 for Insurance Corporate and Regulatory 2017

Recognised by Encyclopaedia of 1000 Longevity Leaders Globally as one of the top 50 Leaders in the UK 2020

Recognised by Euromoney Expert Guides as one of the top women in business nominated by her peers and in-house counsel 2017

Appeared in Country Life Magazine Best of Britain Edition as a woman of influence for her work in insurance and reinsurance and mathematics (June 2025)

Member of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Brain cancer and Brain cancer research September 2025

Qualified as a Notary Public in 2025

Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2021

Previously served as senior legal adviser to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) in representing the UK at the United Nations, UNCITRAL, UNIDROIT and the European Union

Higher Rights of Audience in both the Criminal and Civil Courts in England and Wales