Fraud and corruption

Our substantial fraud and financial crime practice covers all three UK legal jurisdictions. We regularly provide solutions on ‘business as usual’ fraud issues and
have the expertise and resources to conduct large-scale investigations and recoveries for clients.

We support across the entire spectrum of services, from pre-emptive risk assessment through to investigation and recovery. Acting for many of the largest UK banks and other corporate entities, we also work for smaller mortgage lenders and building societies across commercial and retail lending, and for general insurers and specialist product insurers.

We advise clients during investigations and proceedings commenced by various agencies including the FCA, the SFO and/or the police and which concern breaches of AML/CFT regulations, sanctions, bribery and corruption and fraud. In addition, in relation to all of these issues, we offer regulatory compliance training and support.

We have experience in advising and training on regulatory changes to minimise the risk of fraud.

Working with banks, we have extensive experience of investigating large-scale fraud and providing MI to support prevention efforts. We regularly assist our clients by recovering against borrowers and third parties, including pursuing worldwide freezing orders.

Our lawyers understand the issues and provide solutions to meet client need. We put together teams of experts to assist with projects. We also understand that prevention is often more effective than cure and provide post-transaction reviews to assist in the development of our clients’ business fraud prevention strategies.

• Advising a major UK bank on a suspected fraudulent large-scale investment scam in relation to one of its commercial customers following disclosures to the NCA.
• Acting for various directors of a large public sector contractor company in an SFO investigation where the company is alleged to have defrauded the government of approximately £300+ million over a period of 8 years.
• Delivering training to a British multinational investment bank and financial services company on cyber security and internal investigations to in-house legal teams.
• Advising a niche equity release lender on a dispute over a borrower who is now deceased. It is alleged that the beneficiary under the will has been fraudulently altered.
• Advising an industry-leading mutual society which is subject to FCA and PRA enforcement investigation. It was alleged that two of the Society's executives engaged in dishonesty and potentially criminal actions.