Tapestry Compliance

Tapestry is a multi-award-winning boutique law firm specialising in global executive and employee share schemes and incentives. We offer excellent legal service to clients whilst maintaining our ethos of agile working and value for money. We provide insight-driven global solutions, and leading UK technical expertise.

The strength and quality of our offering means we continue to enjoy substantial growth, both in team size and client roster. Our clients have access to specialist, experienced, lawyers for significantly less; providing all-round better service.

Since 2011, employee ownership has been at the heart of what we do.

Our work

We have built a reputation as a challenger firm, going head-to-head with the biggest firms in London and around the world because we offer unmatched expertise, pragmaticism, creative technology solutions, and a commitment to cost-effectiveness.

We are the year-in, year-out trusted adviser on global incentive arrangements, fostering long-term relationships and repeat instructions on plan implementation, documentation and legal/tax compliance, working alongside our clients annually as their trusted adviser.

We handle complex mandates from prominent clients including Coca-Cola Europe, IAG and Unilever, including advising on the impact of transactions and corporate actions on incentive plans.

We advise many banks, insurers and asset managers including Aviva, HSBC and Morgan Stanley on a range of remuneration and regulatory topics.

Our team

We are the largest incentives team in any UK law firm, providing the breadth of expertise and experience to match any of the big law firms.

Our Partner-equivalents (Hannah Needle, Chris Fallon, Suzannah Crookes) lead the team, providing thought-leadership and a wealth of industry expertise.

We have an impressive senior bench of notable lawyers, all with individual specialisms (see lawyer profiles), include Sarah Bruce, Lorna Parkin, Sally Blanchflower, Emma Parker, Matthew Hunter, Paul Abthorpe and Carla Walsham (who re-joined Tapestry in 2024).

Our clients

We are trusted advisors to some of the world's leading companies, providing services to 65% of the current FTSE 100, and as of the date of writing, 50% of the FTSE10. What makes us particularly proud is that our clients stick with us - more than 40% of our clients have been with us for over 5 years, seeing the value we bring and the relationships we build.

Both our UK and international practice have continued to grow, with the number of active clients increasing by 15% in 2024.

Industry-leading

Tapestry’s senior bench has strong activity and involvement in all the major industry organisations (GEO, ProShare, SPLG, NASPP), holding more senior positions in those organisations than any other UK law firm. They are frequently asked to present at high-profile events. This year, Tapestry was a founding sponsor of, and contributor to, GEO’s pioneering Global Share Plan Rankings Study which is being used to support local advocacy and government lobbying, increasing the profile of employee share schemes and incentives globally.

We host a programme of virtual and in-person events offering unrivalled access to key updates, industry policy-makers and allowing peer-to-peer best practice discussions.

We provide email alerts and updates on our LinkedIn network, reporting on breaking industry news and global updates, summarising the key development and providing a perspective from our lawyers.

Technology

We have developed and continue to invest in our market-leading online global legal and tax compliance database which was developed to provide easily-accessible, cost-effective information on areas such as securities laws, exchange controls, employment law and tax considerations in 160+ countries, helping our clients manage incentives compliance more efficiently.

We stand apart from competitor database providers as our lawyers are also providing a majority market share of the related legal advisory work on the relevant topics, meaning our database content is continuously updated to reflect our experience of issues, solutions and market practice. We have maintained this approach over the last year, and have accelerated the development of a wider range of content to reflect changing workplace practices and an increasingly mobile workforce, including new inputs on unlisted company issues and analysis for non-employees.

Training

We provide the UK’s only professional qualification in our industry, the Certificate in Employee Share Plans (accredited by the Chartered Governance Institute UK and Ireland). As well as teaching the technicalities and providing attendees with a solid knowledge foundation, our unique offering shares market knowledge and best practice.