Offering a broad range of financial crime legal services to businesses and individuals. Rosenblatt’s Financial Crime Team are recognised experts having supported businesses with large compliance projects and successfully representing clients in some of the most significant investigations and prosecutions ever brought in the UK.
Please see below for our areas of Financial Crime expertise. Our team is also able to help with serious and general crime offences. To view our Serious and General Crime cases, click here.
Corporate Crime & Investigations
In recent years’ tougher laws, more aggressive regulation and increased global information sharing between the authorities has meant that companies can no longer be complacent in relation to the risks of financial crime. The introduction of the Bribery Act in 2010 shifted criminal liability for bribery and corruption to the company. Similarly, the introduction of Criminal Finances Act which came into force on 30 September 2017 made companies liable for failing to prevent their employees from facilitating tax evasion.
In the face of maintained public pressure, enforcement authorities and regulators are taking a much more proactive approach in bringing investigations and prosecutions against companies and their employees. These can have a devastating impact to your business and reputation.
We assist clients in a variety of sectors to identify and assess risk and further develop and enhance financial crime compliance programmes. Our team frequently act for corporate clients in remediation projects, complex investigations and prosecutions whilst limiting disruption and reputational damage to the business.
We have a wealth of experience in supporting businesses with:
- Bribery and corruption
- Cartel investigations
- Dawn raids
- Deferred prosecution agreements
- Due diligence
- Employee misconduct
- FCA reviews
- Internal and external investigations
- Interviews
- Liaising with various prosecution authorities in domestic and multi-jurisdictional cases
- Modern slavery
- Money laundering (including Suspicious Activity Reporting)
- Monitoring
- Procedures and controls
- Risk assessments
- Sanctions
- Self-reporting
- Tax investigations
- Whistle-blowing
Notable Work
Compliance/Remediation
- Global financial crime risk assessment and compliance programme for a business specialising in sustainable energy.
- Global bribery and corruption and anti-money laundering risk assessment and compliance programme for an international bank.
- Ground up review and re-working of financial crime systems for a payment services firm.
- Anti-money laundering risk assessment and compliance programme for a prestigious luxury jewellery retailer.
- Risk assessment and compliance programme (including training) in relation to associated persons facilitating tax evasion on behalf of a global electronics company and a luxury watch and jewellery business.
- Financial crime and regulatory risk assessment and compliance programme (including training) for a UK hedge fund.
- Evaluation of a supermarket chains compliance risk assessment methodology per UK bribery and corruption, modern slavery, and money laundering legislation.
- Section 166 FSMA review, leading a multi-disciplinary team in developing the process of and undertaking consequential loss assessments and determinations for a national bank in relation to high value and complex claims arising from Interest Rate Hedging Products.
Investigations
- Strategic advisor to a corporate accused of bribery and corruption by the SFO.
- Conducting an internal investigation into post integration issues for a multi-national travel company in sensitive jurisdictions in relation to bribery and money laundering issues. All issues were successfully remediated with no further action being taken by the authorities.
- Representing a large oil company to investigate corrupt payments received by an employee. The investigation involved acquiring data and evidence from several jurisdictions.
- Conducted an internal investigation on behalf of a global condiments business into a senior employee who was diverting funds from the business using fraudulent invoices. The employee was dismissed for gross misconduct and the evidence gathered during the investigation resulted in the employee being criminally prosecuted.
- Representing members of a large political party in relation to allegations of corruption, money laundering and accounting irregularities. Following a lengthy investigation, the members of the political party were refused charge.
- Conducted an internal investigation on behalf of a US company and its subsidiary in the UK into an employee who conspired with the UK subsidiary’s suppliers and customers to perpetrate MTIC VAT fraud causing significant losses to the clients. Also represented the UK company in High Court claims against its customers based in Ireland and Denmark suspected to have been complicit in the MTIC VAT fraud causing losses to the clients.
- Acted on behalf of a high profile luxury jewellery business against HMRC allegations of money laundering breaches. Ensured there were no criminal charges and the financial fines against the company were substantially reduced following successful submissions made to HMRC AML Supervision Division.
Financial Crime
Rosenblatt’s Financial Crime team has acted for individuals in some of the highest-profile financial crime cases and has in-depth knowledge of defending and advising individuals facing investigations and prosecutions by the following agencies.
- Architects Registration Board (ARB)
- Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)
- Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)
- Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS)
- Health and Safety Executive (HSE)
- Environment Agency (EA)
- Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)
- Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC)
- National Health Service (NHS)
- Royal Mail
- Serious Fraud Office (SFO)
- Trading Standards
- Office for Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) and other relevant UK Governmental bodies
We recognise that criminal investigations and proceedings can be highly stressful particularly given the stakes are high as your liberty and reputation are at risk.
The members of Rosenblatt’s Financial Crime team have extensive experience of attending interviews under caution at police stations and the offices of other investigating agencies.
In addition to interviews conducted under caution we also represent clients who are required to attend and be interviewed pursuant to the exercise of compulsory powers. These include powers of the SFO under section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1987 and of the FCA under sections 171 and 172 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 whereby individuals and companies may be compelled to answer questions, provide information, or produce documents to assist in the investigation of fraud or regulatory breaches.
Our strategic approach, keen eye for detail and meticulous case preparation from the outset ensures that you have the best outcome possible with many of our clients being refused charge, avoiding prosecution by way of civil settlement; having prosecutions terminated through abuse of process arguments, applications to dismiss or being acquitted following trial.
We have access to the most experienced barristers in the UK, a network of law firms in the UK and other jurisdictions and other experts such as forensic accountants and tax advisers with whom we work closely depending on the nature of your case.
Our Financial Crime team is regularly instructed in relation to the following types of cases:
- Account Freezing Orders
- Boiler room fraud
- Bribery and corruption
- Courier Fraud
- Cryptocurrency
- Cyber crime
- Directors disqualification
- Environmental crime
- Extradition
- Insider dealing
- Insurance fraud
- Interpol notices
- Investment fraud
- Market abuse
- Money laundering
- Mortgage fraud
- Pension fraud
- Ponzi fraud
- Romance Fraud
- Search and seizure (dawn raids)
- Tax and duty evasion (including Missing Trader Intra Community (MTIC) fraud)
- VAT fraud
- Vishing & Phishing Fraud
- Unexplained Wealth Orders
- UK sanctions issues
Members of our team have expertise in advising and representing clients in non-financial related criminal offences. We also advise clients in relation to confiscation, civil recovery, production orders, restraint orders and cash seizures.
Our team also advise both individuals and companies on a range of UK sanctions issues including compliance with the sanctions regime, ensuring that any transactions do not result economic resources being transferred to a designated /sanctioned person or entity, the identification of a designated person and their ownership of a corporate entity, and general asset freezes under various sanctions legislation.
Notable Work
- Represented senior figures of an international pharmaceutical company interviewed under section 2 by the SFO.
- Represented senior figures for an international oil company interviewed under section 2 by the SFO.
- Operation Ipswich: FCA investigation into a multi-million pound, multi-jurisdictional investment scheme resulting in no further action being taken against our client.
- Represented banking professionals alleged to have manipulated the LIBOR. Following responses to the FCA’s Preliminary Investigation Report and section 2 interviews with the SFO our clients were refused criminal charges.
- Operation Tidworth: Southwark Crown Court, multi-million-pound international boiler room fraud prosecuted by the FCA which was recognised as one of the biggest FCA prosecutions in history.
- Operation Wintergreen: Southwark Crown Court, multi-million-pound carbon credit fraud, investigation by the City of London Police.
- Operation Foremark: High value insurance and mortgage fraud in which we represented an Orthopaedic Surgeon as featured on Channel 4s “24 Hours in Police Custody”.
- Operation Greenking: Wood Green Crown Court, £44 million payroll service fraud prosecuted by HMRC, Essex Police and Kent Police.
- Operation Heteredon – National Crime Agency investigation into a multi-million-pound, cross jurisdiction money laundering operation, resulting in no further action against all suspects.
- Operation Spallation: Central Criminal Court, a multi handed HMRC corruption case involving allegations of misconduct in public office.
- Operation Tulipbox: Southwark Crown Court, £38 million European Union Allowances (carbon credits) MTIC fraud, the first ever to be prosecuted in the UK.
- Operation Carp: Southwark Crown Court, £11 million carbon credit MTIC fraud.
- Operation Vex: Kingston Crown Court, £85 million mobile phone MTIC fraud.
- R v Ahmed and Umerji: Court of Appeal (Criminal Division), client alleged to have been responsible for leading MTIC VAT fraud which caused losses exceeding £56 million to the revenue resulting in convictions that were quashed on appeal.
- R v Akram & Others: Ipswich Crown Court, £1.9 million duty evasion on cigarettes. CPS offered no evidence two weeks prior to trial following abuse of process arguments.
- Private Prosecution: Southwark Crown Court, complex trade mark infringement and fraud case brought by an international company. Our client was acquitted following a jury trial.
- Cash seizure proceedings: secured the release of over £250,000 cash seized by Thames Valley Police to our client.
- Cash seizure proceedings: secured the release of over £220,000 cash seized by the Serious Organised Crime Command to our client.
Tax Litigation & Investigations
Rosenblatt’s Tax Litigation and Investigations team represents businesses and individuals in often complex and high value disputes with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) particularly where deliberate behaviour or dishonesty is alleged.
Our objective is to support clients with reaching settlement with HMRC at early stages of enquiries. When settlement cannot be reached, members of our team have successfully litigated and defended high value cases in the First-Tier Tax Tribunal, Upper Tribunal, Court of Appeal and the Court of Justice of the European Union.
Our expertise in criminal law assists us in dealing with tax cases where there are existing or potential parallel criminal proceedings.
Our team can assist with all aspects of tax investigations and disputes involving:
- AWRS and WOWGR for alcohol sector
- Customs Duty
- Code of Practice 8 and 9
- EU Export Controls and Sanctions Regimes
- Excise Duty
- Income Tax
- HMRC Civil Investigations
- HMRC Criminal Investigations
- Penalties
- Self-reporting
- VAT and Indirect Tax
Our team has regularly advised clients who are concerned that HMRC may be trying to exceed or have exceeded their powers to gather information and data from both taxpayers and those that hold their data.
Notable work
- Conducted an internal investigation on behalf of a UK company subject to an investigation by HMRC into tax irregularities and supporting the business with remediating historic tax issues.
- Acted for a construction company in HMRC’s investigation into unpaid VAT, CIS, and a suspected corporate criminal offence for facilitating tax evasion under the Criminal Finance Act 2017.
- E Buyer UK Limited v HMRC and HMRC v Citibank NA: Acted for E Buyer in the Upper Tribunal in relation to its appeal against HMRC’s decision to deny input tax and raise tax assessments in excess of millions of pounds on the basis its transactions traced back to the fraudulent tax losses.
- HMRC v Red 12 – Acted for HMRC in MTIC fraud in VAT Tribunal, Chancery Division, and Court of Appeal (Civil Division), now a leading case.
- HMRC v GDL – Appeal against HMRC’s decision to deny input tax of over £3.5 million on the basis that its transactions were connected with the fraudulent evasion of VAT.
- Acted for a business in the luxury goods sector in settling a dispute with HMRC in relation to an enquiry into disputed stock valuations.
- Successfully advised a large wholesaler based in Wales with challenging HMRC’s VAT and duty assessment in the sum of over £4.3 million on alcoholic products during the review stage.
- Settling HMRC’s investigation into a husband and wife’s personal affairs with tax losses to the revenue being in excess of £1.2 million by way of civil COP9.
- Successful applications on behalf of numerous alcohol businesses to HMRC for AWRS and WOWGR.
Private Prosecutions
In recent times, the police have been overwhelmed with the amount of serious crimes being reported and are understaffed due to financial cuts.
As such, more often than not, the police have failed to investigate serious crimes, such as fraud or sexual assault, simply because they do not have the manpower or expertise to do so. In light of this, many victims of crime are not having their reports investigated or prosecuted, despite how much evidence they may have or how clear cut the case may be.
This is where Rosenblatt’s private prosecutions team can help you. We represent both businesses and individuals who have been the victims of crime. We can assist clients by investigating the crimes committed and bringing these cases to the magistrate and crown courts in what is called a private prosecution.
Rosenblatt’s role is to assist in gathering the evidence and drafting necessary witness statements, having the case issued in the magistrates’ court, making sure the Defendant attends court to answer the charges and ensuring the case gets to trial so the Defendant can be tried for the crimes they have committed against the private prosecutor.
Memberships
- Member of the Private Prosecutors’ Association (PPA)
Notable Work
- Successful appeal in the Criminal Court of Appeal against a ruling in the Crown Court to stay a prosecution due to abuse of process. Set guidelines on when bringing a private prosecution would or would not be an abuse of process.
- Brought a private prosecution for an International Bank and obtained arrest warrant against an individual who had defrauded them of circa US $40 Million.
- Brought a private prosecution for an individual who had been defrauded of £500k via investing in a property and the property being sold without accounting back to the individual for the £500k.
- Brought a private prosecution for an investor who lent money and had been promised a share in two properties, only for the properties to be transferred to other people without the knowledge of the investor.
- Investigated and prosecuted a case in the crown court involving an individual who had put his company into liquidation in order to avoid payment of a debt to our client. Uncovered fraudulent trading and phoenix entities.
- Brought private prosecution against a builder for fraudulently representing they had insurance for undertaking works on a house when in fact there was no such insurance in place.
