Recent years have seen a big increase in the commoditization of structured finance in Spain. After several years of consistent growth, the banks are finally treating Spain as just another western jurisdiction, with the same expectations of quick turnaround, high volume and low fees from their external counsel. More deals are also being executed by the banks in-house, given their now extensive knowledge of how these deals work in the Spanish market. This, obviously, means even less work for external counsel, but several firms have made the smart move of volunteering templates and other standard documentation to the banks' internal teams. This may not be hourly charging, but by getting the banks to pay for this service it does compensate for some of the lost revenue otherwise felt by commoditization.
December 01 2007