City Office

• We opened a City Office to provide our clients with the facilities and convenience their cases may demand.

• We have linked up with Tooks chambers to work together so we can face possible changes to the structure of legal services head on, and to allow access to the facilities and expertise a leading set of barristers chambers offers.

• We deal with a number of areas of commercial wrongdoing, such as Insider Trading, VAT Fraud and Regulatory Offences.

FRAUD, WHITE COLLAR CRIME AND MONEY LAUNDERING

This is the largest area of crime within the business sector. It covers a vast area which includes banking fraud, bribery, mobile phone fraud, computer fraud, counterfeiting, credit card fraud, embezzlement, forgery, Insider Trading, investment schemes and money laundering.

Fraud

• A fraud is committed where a person or persons dishonestly to make a gain or to cause loss dishonestly make(s) a false representation, wrongfully fails to disclose information, or secretly abuses a position of trust. This also covers the offence of obtaining services dishonestly where a person by any dishonest act obtains services in respect of which payment is required, with intent to avoid payment.

Conspiracy and acting with others

• Fraud offences very often involve a conspiracy. This is an agreement between two or more people to commit the offence. There has to be a “meeting of minds” i.e. you can’t conspire with yourself and all persons charged with conspiracy must have had the intention to carry out the agreement reached.

Money Laundering

• Money laundering offences involve concealing the true ownership of the proceeds of criminal activity, through a cycle of transactions into financial assets which appear to have legitimate origins. The six “cycles” of laundering include creation, consolidation, placement, layering, integration and realisation.

Money Laundering can cover other underlying criminal activity including:

• Drug- trafficking and terrorist activity

• Theft, fraud, forgery and counterfeiting

• Blackmail, extortion and protection rackets

• Tax evasion – false declarations, false accounting, deception or dishonestly obtaining a pecuniary advantage. The law does cover the proceeds of overseas activities which would have been criminal had they occurred in the UK

• Human trafficking, product counterfeiting, VAT fraud, corruption.

Confiscation

• The Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) 2002 has given courts sweeping powers to seize assets from those convicted of criminal offences. Many of these financial liabilities can be draconian and, in some cases, can take away almost all the assets you have amassed.

• Under POCA a police officer can apply to freeze a suspect’s assets and have a receiver appointed over a suspect’s estate as soon as he starts an investigation into an offence.

Civil Forfeiture

• Under the Serious Crime Act 2007 what was previously known as the Assets Recovery Agency was subsumed into SOCA, the UKs' FBI. The ARA had been responsible for recovering the proceeds of crime and utilized powers such as Civil Forfeiture to do so.

• This involves an application for the forfeiture of property against individuals who have never been charged with any criminal offences. SOCA must show that the property has been derived from unlawful conduct.

• SOCA has wide-ranging investigatory powers to apply for the disclosure of information, search and seizure warrants, production orders and restraint orders.

Prosecuting and investigating authorities- Fraud

• Fraud offences may be prosecuted by the Crown Prosecution Service. Complex cases are often prosecuted by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and Regulatory Breaches by the Financial Services Authority (FSA.

• The FSA will prosecute where there is evidence of Insider Trading, when price sensitive information is passed by an 'authorised person'.

Inland Revenue (HMRC)

• Deliberate false declarations constitute a criminal offence. There are specific Revenue offences, such as cheating the Revenue or evading VAT as well as offences of failing to maintain, complete or submit records and returns.

• HMRC will investigate where there is evidence of a failure to submit accurate returns, or where they suspect VAT has been evaded (as opposed to avoided).

HM Customs & Excise (Revenue and Customs Prosecution Office)

Customs and Excise have extensive powers to investigate crime and duty evasion. Customs investigations may cover matters as diverse as drugs offences, smuggling, VAT offences, or any criminal offences, including money laundering.

The Financial Services Authority

The FSA regulates almost all the financial services industry, from independent   financial advisers through to Banks. It has wide-ranging powers to investigate all manner of problems within financial services ranging from the mis-selling of pensions or “authorised persons” passing on price sensitive information - Insider share trading - to regulation and disciplinary matters relating to those “approved persons” or authorised firms.

The FSA can also investigate a variety of different criminal offences often relating to a “perimeter breach” i.e. where an un-authorised person has carried out a regulated activity; market rigging, insider share dealing, together with numerous other offences including cases of misleading or obstructing an FSA investigation.

The FSA - Regulatory Issues

The FSA can also bring disciplinary proceedings against authorised persons or permitted firms for regulatory breaches and for the mis-selling of financial products.

Fraud Panel

Many prosecutions fall into a category which has to be referred to members of a Specialist Fraud Panel. BSB solicitors are on that Fraud Panel and are authorised by the Legal Services Commission to conduct Very High Costs Cases (VHCCs)

How a criminal defence is funded?

Free Legal Advice is always available to everyone for an interview under caution at a Police Station. Legal aid is also available for defendants charged with serious and complex fraud offences in the Crown Court.

Interviews

A person under suspicion may be asked to attend an interview voluntarily or may be interviewed under caution. In either case it is always advisable to have a solicitor present; even if the person believes they have done nothing wrong