Legal luminary Shaheeda Barrie joins Union Bank Board

Monday, 20 April 2026 04:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Shaheeda Barrie

Union Bank of Colombo PLC has appointed Shaheeda Barrie to its Board as an Independent Non-Executive Director.

Barrie is a senior legal practitioner with over 25 years of experience in public law, financial regulation, capital markets, banking and finance, and complex commercial litigation and arbitration. She is an Attorney-at-Law of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka and a Barrister-at-Law of England & Wales (Gray’s Inn) and a Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, United Kingdom.

She served for 22 years at the Attorney General’s Department of Sri Lanka and rose to the rank of Deputy Solicitor General, during which period she advised and represented the Government of Sri Lanka, regulators, state-owned enterprises and public institutions on high-value and high-impact matters.

Her work included extensive involvement in legislative drafting and reform, including key legislation relating to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Sri Lanka, the Colombo Port City, public debt and capital markets. She has also served as Legal Advisor to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, Legal Consultant to the Securities and Exchange Commission of Sri Lanka, and as a member of the Company Law Advisory Commission of Sri Lanka.

Following her retirement from public service, she is presently engaged as an independent legal counsel and consultant, heading her own chambers and is frequently retained in complex litigation, arbitration, regulatory advisory and legislative reform projects. She has acted as a consultant to multilateral institutions including the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, USAID and the International Finance Corporation and currently serves as a Director of the Personal Data Protection Authority of Sri Lanka.

Barrie holds an LL.B with First Class Honours from the London School of Economics and Political Science, a Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL) from the University of Oxford and an LL.M (summa cum laude) from the American University, Washington College of Law. She is a recipient of the Commonwealth Scholarship and the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship. She is also a Visiting Lecturer in Law and a published author on banking law, financial regulation and public law.