Recent & Current Assignments
Advising US client in relation to global estate of late husband: identifying, locating and recovering assets across 22 jurisdictions held at numerous financial institutions.
Advising and representing Georgian private client in respect of banking fraud involving breach of fiduciary duties over facilities at private Austrian bank. The creditor client is pursing the recovery of approximately €100m against Swiss national.
Advice and assistance in connection with the looting by the Nazis of a major Austrian private art collection. The assignment involves a complex multi-jurisdictional investigation into the location of a significant part of the collection with a view to restitution of the works.
Advising and representing equities & bonds brokerage and firm’s partners based in the City of London in response to FCA investigation and into structured equities transactions involving dividend withholding tax reclaims against various European tax agencies. The investigations against OM’s clients were shut down without any enforcement action being taken after 6 years. The FCA successfully pursued enforcement action leading to sanctions against several regulated entities. There was also linked litigation pursued in Dubai, England, Denmark & The US.
Advising and representing offshore corporation and Ukrainian private shareholder in connection with asset covered by worldwide freezing order of circa $10 billion USD – the largest asset recovery proceedings in the English High Court – granted to state-owned bank (represented by Hogan Lovells) against Kazakh oligarch.
Advising Brazilian in-house lawyer on the duty to file a suspicious activity report (“SAR”) with the UK National Crime Agency (“NCA”). The assignment arose out of certain financial transactions to which the client’s employer was a party. The advice centred on concerns around professional rules as well as potential criminal liability.
Advising and representing private shareholder in relation to £10 million claim under section 90A of Financial Services & Markets Act 2000 against listed company (against Herbet Smith Freehills).
Advising the government of an African nation state on the merits of a complaint to the BBC Executive Editorial Unit and appealing to the BBC Trust Editorial Standards Committee in relation to alleged inaccuracies and misconduct concerning a documentary on a genocidal war.
Advising and representing the son of former head of state of a Central American sovereign state, in relation to assets restrained over $55 million USD corruption investigation. This was part of the Lavo Jato (Carwash) corruption scandal spanning 14 Latin American countries which followed Odebrecht’s fine of $3.5 billion USD imposed by Brazilian and Swiss authorities.
Advising Nigerian energy corporation and private shareholder on investigation being undertaken by UK National Crime Agency (NCA) International Corruption Unit into $20 billion missing oil revenues. The client was accused of bribing the Petroleum Minister. No charges were brought.
Advising and acting for Saudi Arabian client in relation to claims of international fraud and asset recovery to the value of $3 billion USD.
Advising and representing corporate client and private shareholder in relation to a £4m commercial claim concerning investment fraud involving Indonesian and Mexican commodities trades. The client was accused of misrepresenting the nature of the investment and the risk involved by the principal investor. Eventually the claim was withdrawn.
Advising, representing Belgian private client on attempted enforcement by Irish National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) of €25 million personal guarantee. Settlement reached for less than one per per cent of the value of the claim.
Advising US financial services company (alongside Allen & Overy) re FSA (now FCA) enforcement action relating to the Market in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID).