Funds
Carol Widger
Dechert
Widger is managing partner of the firm’s Dublin office and a partner in the Dechert’s investment funds group in Dublin. She has more than two decades’ experience advising fund promoters, fund managers, Alternative Investment Fund Managers (AIFMs), MiFID firms and other investment funds services firms. She has advised on the launch of Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) Article 8 funds, also known as the ‘light green’ variety, as well as on the upgrading of SFDR Article 6 funds to Article 8. She is also a senior advisor of the Dublin location for 100 Women in Finance, where she was the former chair and founding member. Prior to joining Dechert in 2019, she was a partner at Maples and Calder.
widger has advised on the launch of Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) Article 8 funds, also known as the ‘light green’ variety, as well as on the upgrading of SFDR Article 6 funds to Article 8
Tara Doyle
Matheson
Noted in the European Legal 500 from 2020 as having the “deepest knowledge I have ever come across”, Doyle has also been described as a “huge powerhouse” of connections by Chambers. Heading Matheson’s asset management and investment funds department, she is an expert on the legal and regulatory issues around private and public investment funds, and advised on the first alternative investment fund manager (AIFM) set up in Ireland.
Adam Donoghue
Maples Group
As co-head of the firm’s Irish funds and investment management group, Donoghue’s clients include some of the world’s largest hedge funds and sponsors of private credit, private equity, direct lending and real asset/ infrastructure funds. He previously spent five years based in the Maples Group’s London office where he set up and built a dedicated Irish funds team to focus on servicing the firm’s UK client base and, in particular, to advise on Brexit-related structuring implications. Donoghue has led complex deals over the past year, including as lead advisor for Ireland’s first investment limited partnership authorised under the new legislative regime and Ireland’s first regulated fund to be permitted to invest in crypto. He joined Maples Group in 2009 and was elected as a partner in 2012.
Peter Stapleton
Maples Group
Before he was elevated to managing partner in 2021, Stapleton worked as head of investment funds and was among the biggest Irish players in the world of investment funds. Telling the Business Post in 2023 about how Maples was the “original disrupter” as the first international firm to open an office in Dublin, Stapleton spoke about its plans for innovation and growth. He is also an active participant of Climate Finance Week, which his firm has sponsored, and wants the practice to lead on diversity initiatives, such as those targeted to neurodivergent employees. Under his leadership, the firm has also been a proud signatory to the Bar of Ireland’s Equitable Briefing Policy and the Women in Finance Charter. Prior to joining Maples Group, Stapleton worked with Dillon Eustace for over a decade.
Dara Harrington
Arthur Cox
Harrington is a partner in the asset management and investment funds group and is the head of the firm’s finance group. He has acted in a wide range of transactions advising fund promoters, investment managers, financial institutions, service providers and investors on the establishment and operation of all types of investment funds (including UCITS, QIAIFs, ICAVs, closed-ended funds, hedge funds, direct lending funds and private equity funds). He is a former member of the Council of the Irish Funds Industry Association and former chair of the association’s AIF regulation and AIFMD reform working group. Described as “very sharp” in Chambers Global, Harrington has been with Arthur Cox since 2001 minus a 10-month in-house secondment to the risk management group of Macquarie in Australia.
Colman O’Loghlen
Dillon Eustace
A partner in the firm’s asset management and investment funds team, O’Loghlen specialises in advice on regulatory and structural issues relating to the establishment and management of all types of investment funds. He has advised US, European and Asian-based asset managers seeking Central Bank of Ireland approval to act as investment manager to Irish domiciled funds. His team advised Azimut and UniCredit in relation to investment strategies which would reach around seven million customers. Remarking on his strategy when advising clients, especially those in other jurisdiction, O’Loghlen told Lawyer Monthly last year that “being clear and succinct with advice is paramount”.
Mark White
McCann FitzGerald
White advises some of the largest fund managers in the domestic and international funds market, as well as large institutional and seed investors, such as pension schemes.
Clients include AXA Real Estate Investment Managers, CG Asset Management, Davy, Irish Life Investment Managers, JP Morgan, Pegasus Advisors, and UBS Wealth Management. White is also chair of McCann FitzGerald, a role to which he was appointed last year.
He is a member of the Irish Funds AIF Innovation Working Group and is an officer of the International Bar Association’s asset management and investment funds committee.
A UCD graduate, White joined the firm in 1994 and made partner in 2004.
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