David J Campbell

Practice Areas

David divides his time between "new money" corporate finance transactions and distressed workouts/restructurings. He has acted for most major banks and his corporate relationships include several FTSE-100 and FTSE-250 companies.

David’s corporate finance practice includes investment grade and crossover corporate credits, private and public acquisition finance, and structured finance for specialist or unusual situations. He has a huge variety of experience, gained over 20+ years of practice across different sectors and financing structures, meaning he can often find novel but pragmatic solutions where traditional financing solutions are not appropriate.

In recent years David has advised on financings for commodities traders in financial distress (designing a novel form of syndicated trade finance arrangement which has since become more widely used in the market), emergency financing arrangements for major financial institutions, a Norwegian oil services company, numerous professional and corporate service providers, a Bollywood film producer, utilities, manufacturers ranging from medium-sized to global, a multilateral development institution, a generic pharma manufacturer and a football club, among others. He acted on the first-ever syndicated loan based on SOFR (the new global benchmark for US dollars), and in 2020, he helped numerous banks and corporates respond quickly to the changing landscape caused by COVID-19, including accessing UK government's CCFF and CLBILS support.

David is heavily involved in A&O Shearman's use of new technology to streamline banking transactions, our community and pro bono efforts, and our work to improve the diversity of our firm (with a particular focus on social diversity).

Directories describe David as a leading lawyer in Banking & Finance, commenting that “he gets things done in a really sensible way and is a pleasure to deal with”. Clients have praised him for being "very collaborative, supportive and very pragmatic in understanding what we are trying to achieve and how he can support us whilst protecting the risk from a banking perspective."