Simon Cook

Practice Areas

Simon Cook has experience in a wide variety of banking and finance transactions, including in relation to structured trade finance, trade finance, digitalised/electronic trade finance, receivables finance, supply chain finance, commodity finance, warehouse finance, project finance, invoice discounting and borrowing-base facilities and he has advised on transactions across the emerging markets. He has worked and travelled extensively in Africa and the Middle East, where he was based in Dubai for almost four years.

Simon is a member of the Executive Board of the International Trade Finance Association (ITFA) and in 2021 he was appointed its Head of Education. In November 2022, Simon was re-appointed as one of just eight full voting members on ITFA’s African Regional Committee, of which he was also a founding member in 2017.

He is ranked in Chambers UK, 2025 in Tier 1 as a Leading Individual for Commodities: Trade Finance and is included in the ‘Hall of Fame’ for Trade Finance by The Legal 500 UK, 2025.

He regularly participates in structured trade finance, receivables finance, supply chain finance, digitalisation/electronic trade finance and project finance conferences and seminars throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa, including speaking at conferences on PPP in South Africa; on project finance and structured trade finance at Afrexim's annual structured finance conferences in Egypt, Ghana, Zambia, Cape Verde and South Africa; and at structured trade finance seminars and general finance seminars in London, Paris, Lisbon, Geneva, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, South Africa, Zambia, Uganda, Ghana, Mauritius, Nairobi and Dubai.

Education

The College of Law, 1992 to 1994 (CPE and LPC), University of Bristol, 1991 (M.A., Ancient History), University of Bristol, 1987 to 1990, (BA (Hons) in Ancient History and Archaeology).