Hetti Lump-Kivisaari

Professional highlights

Extensive experience in advising financial and insurance sector companies. I have advised finance and insurance sector companies for over 10 years. During this time, I have had the opportunity to advise credit institutions, insurance undertakings and intermediaries, loan and savings associations and various financial institutions, including investment firms, fund managers, payment and e-money institutions, crowdfunding service providers, credit providers and intermediaries, and crypto asset service providers on various complex legal and regulatory matters. This includes setting up their businesses, structuring business models, preparing business plans and internal policies, obtaining authorisations, navigating complex legal requirements and regulated processes (e.g. management and ownership changes), developing and launching new products, preparing client-facing and outsourcing documentation, and expanding into new markets. Through this experience, I have developed a deep understanding of the financial and insurance sector regulatory environment in Estonia and the EU, and the needs and expectations of the sector participants and supervision authorities. Working with different types of financial and insurance sector companies allows me to draw parallels and use analogies where regulation is ambiguous or contains gaps.

A broad perspective, cross-border experience and business-mindedness. I have worked in global networks providing professional consultation services, including legal advice, for more than six years. This has given me the unique opportunity to work closely not only with different legal and tax advisors, but also with business, financial, risk, IT and other advisors from numerous countries, and to learn from them. The cooperation has allowed me to understand clients’ businesses and needs from a much wider perspective than just the legal one. It has also made it very clear that, when providing legal advice, the focus must always be on the clients and their business needs. Having led a number of complex financial sector projects spanning multiple countries, involving numerous different advisors and lasting months or years, I have also learned valuable techniques and skills for people and large-scale project management.

Innovation and technology. As a firm believer in disruptive innovation and novel technologies, I also advise clients on regulatory matters in relation to developing and launching innovative financial and insurance services and products in Estonia. For example, I have advised multiple virtual currency service providers and fintechs on the establishment and authorisation of an investment firm that will operate a multilateral trading facility and offer other investment services related to MIFID II financial instruments issued by means of distributed ledger technology.