Business and Financial Crime
Chambers provides a multi-disciplinary approach to Business and Financial Crime, including being able to provide criminal practitioners with knowledge and experience of company and insolvency law, the White Book and the Commercial Court, and commercial practitioners with knowledge and experience of criminal proceedings. A combined team with criminal and commercial skills can be tailored to meet the needs of a specific case, or a practitioner with the requisite mix of skills can be found to offer prompt, practical advice and robust representation.
Areas of expertise in which members of Chambers have prosecuted and/or defended include FSA enforcement and prosecution, OFT Cartel and price-fixing cases under the Enterprise Act, BERR (DTI) fraudulent trading prosecutions under the Companies Act, VAT (missing trader/carousel) fraud, high value mortgage fraud, investor and creditor fraud and SFO prosecutions. Each of these bodies has different information gathering and investigative powers, creating a potential minefield for Directors subject to scrutiny and facing the possibility of criminal investigation.
The team can provide pre-interview and/or pre-charge advice at an early stage of an investigation, given by counsel with knowledge of the statutory duties of, and sensitive to the pressures facing, Company Directors operating in the current financial landscape. Chambers can provide counsel who can react quickly to developing situations, such as following a dawn raid by investigators, or following an invitation to a Company Director to attend a voluntary interview, or when confronted by evidence or information acquired by surveillance, employee informant/whistle blowers, or test purchases. All counsel experienced in this area can also advise Directors in respect of the Immunity from Prosecution provisions, where their early co-operation with the authorities may result in a prosecution being terminated as part of a negotiated deal.
In addition to early advice, Chambers can provide counsel with extensive experience of managing and running a defence in a complex fraud trial involving high value fraud and/or assets (running to many millions of pounds), multiple Company Director defendants, multi-jurisdictional/cross-border transactions and issues, multiple experts (accountancy, banking, computing) and where the trial is expected to last for many months.
Chambers provides a ‘one-stop-shop’ for Business and Financial Crime, from early advice, through to trial management and culminating in the final resolution of all financial issues arising from an investigation and/or prosecution. Advice and representation concerning the search for and seizure of assets, the recovery of those assets, Restraint Orders, Freezing Orders, matters arising from the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and related civil proceedings is available from Chambers at any stage of proceedings or throughout.
