Claire Wivell, also known as Claire Wivell Plater, is an Australian lawyer and company director based in Sydney. She was a partner at Phillips Fox from 1982 to 1998, founded The Fold Legal, a financial services regulatory firm, and helped establish Fintech Australia and the country's fintech policy work.
Background
Claire Wivell, who is also known as Claire Wivell Plater, grew up on an apple farm in Tasmania, the island state south of mainland Australia. She has said that she never felt she belonged there, did not enjoy the outdoors or farm work, and preferred books and reading.
Her family brought her to Sydney when she was nine and again when she was twelve. She did not apply to university in Tasmania; instead she enrolled at the Australian National University in Canberra before moving to Sydney, where she has lived since. The Australian National University was established by federal legislation in 1946 and is a research university in the national capital.
Education
Wivell studied law at the University of Sydney, where she earned a Bachelor of Laws in 1981. Founded in 1850, the university was Australia's first, and it was among the first universities in the world to admit students solely on academic merit. The law degree was provided for in the Act that founded the university, although the early Faculty of Law worked mainly through examination rather than teaching.
Sydney Law School began a full programme of legal instruction in 1890, after its first chair was appointed. She was admitted to the bar in Australia in 1982, the year she became a partner at Phillips Fox.
Career
Her legal career began in Sydney in 1982, when she became a partner at Phillips Fox, an Australian law firm. She worked as an insurance law specialist and represented many insurance brokers, and she has described seeing that brokers would struggle to meet new regulatory demands. Phillips Fox later formed an alliance with the Anglo-American firm DLA Piper in 2006 and was integrated into DLA Piper Australia in 2011.
In 2002 she founded The Fold Legal, a specialist financial services regulatory advice firm, and she led it as founder and managing director until 2019. Its work began in general insurance and expanded into wealth management, credit, fintech and blockchain. A 2022 submission she made to the Treasury's Quality of Advice Review stated that she had advised about one hundred financial advice licensees on regulatory matters during that period, and she represented the Association of Financial Advisers at the Financial Services Royal Commission, the national inquiry into the financial services sector. The firm was sold to Halo Group in 2021.
During the mid-2010s she worked on the policy and industry side of fintech. She assisted in founding Fintech Australia, an association formed in 2015 by fintech and financial services companies, which launched publicly in February 2016. She also served on the Federal Treasurer's FinTech Advisory Group, which was announced to work with government on financial services policy reform.
Since retiring from active legal practice in 2019, she has worked as a non-executive director and adviser. Her board roles have included Youi Insurance, an Australian insurer, Lawcover Insurance, which is linked to the legal profession, the digital asset exchange Swyftx, and Zero Hash Australia, a digital asset infrastructure company. In 2022 she described herself as chairman of Aware Super Financial Services, the advice arm of Aware Superannuation. She has also been deputy chair of The Stella Prize, a literary award for Australian women writers. Since 1988 she has delivered over 300 presentations and publications in Australasia on financial services legal and regulatory issues.
Achievements
She assisted in founding Fintech Australia, an industry association formed in 2015 by fintech and financial services companies to advocate for Australian fintech, which launched publicly in 2016.
She led industry working parties that contributed to Australian government policy development on the regulatory sandbox, digital advice and blockchain regulation.
Views
Her professional outlook emphasises simplifying regulatory complexity and providing affordable legal solutions to financial services businesses, as her firm describes her mission. She has said that she thrives on complexity and regulation and takes pride in finding elegant solutions to difficult problems.
She has also expressed the belief that strong organisational culture, combined with operational and governance excellence, produces powerful results.
Membership
She served on the Business Advisory Committee of ASIC, Australia's national corporate and financial services regulator, from 2009 to 2019. She also sat on the Federal Treasurer's FinTech Advisory Group from 2016 to 2019, a body that advised government on financial services policy reform.
Her other memberships have centred on fintech, managed accounts and company governance. She was honorary legal adviser to Fintech Australia in 2015 and 2016, and honorary counsel to the Institute of Managed Account Providers, an Australian industry body, from 2013 to 2019. She is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, the professional body for company directors. She is also a board director of Pinchgut Opera, a Sydney opera company, and deputy chair of The Stella Prize.
Member
ASIC Business Advisory Committee
,
Australia
2009 - 2019
Member
Federal Treasurer's FinTech Advisory Group
,
Australia
2016 - 2019
Honorary Legal Adviser
Fintech Australia
,
Australia
2015 - 2016
Honorary Counsel
Institute of Managed Account Providers
,
Australia
2013 - 2019
Graduate
Australian Institute of Company Directors
,
Australia
Deputy Chair
The Stella Prize
,
Australia
Board Director
Pinchgut Opera
,
Australia
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
A long-standing client, quoted on her firm's website, said she was one of the few lawyers willing to state difficult matters frankly.
Interests
She is an active investor in early-stage technology ventures and a philanthropist who supports arts and Indigenous advancement causes. She has been a member of the Sydney Theatre Company's Supporting Women in Theatre donor syndicate, a major Sydney theatre company's donor group.
Connections
She co-owned a business with her partner Valerie, and the two later set up a law firm, with ownership of the rest of the firm shared equally between them.
Collegue :
Valerie
Business partner with whom the subject co-owned a company and later a law firm, with ownership shared equally between them.
References
Quality of Advice Review submission by Claire Wivell Plater
Submission by the subject, signed as Claire Wivell Plater LLB, describing her background in financial services law, her firm The Fold Legal and her current non-executive and adviser roles.
2022
Claire Wivell Plater, The Fold Legal team profile
Firm profile describing her founding of The Fold, her committee roles, her Bachelor of Laws from the University of Sydney and her partnership at Phillips Fox from 1982 to 1998.
Claire Wivell Plater, Lawcover people page
Biography describing her insurance law partnership at Phillips Fox, her founding of The Fold Legal and her role as a non-executive director of Lawcover Insurance.
