Financial and business crime

To discuss your requirements, please contact Jeremy Scott on 07971520407.

Whether the investigation centres on the business itself, owners, or the board, or even its employees, we understand that facing criminal investigation can be overwhelming and the associated disruption can be damaging for both the business and the individuals involved, irrespective of the final outcome. Our lawyers will use their extensive knowledge of regulatory and criminal law to ensure the impact on your life, your reputation, and your business operations are kept to a minimum.

If you or your business faces allegations of corporate crime or faces regulatory investigation, you can trust our Business and Financial Crime team to provide the very best advice and representation. The approach of our business & financial crime solicitors, and years of success in high-profile cases have resulted in us being recognised and accredited by the following organisations.

Business or corporate crime also referred to a white-collar crime, is normally categorised as a group of financially motivated, non-violent crimes committed by businesses, directors, and employees in the course of carrying out their daily business activities. Some are more sophisticated than others, but all could potentially lead to an investigation by the appropriate regulatory body, with the potential for prosecution. Such crimes include the likes of money-laundering, tax fraud, intellectual property infringement, insider trading, mortgage fraud, bribery, and bank fraud, amongst others.

Depending on the severity of the alleged crime or breach of regulation, the impact an unsuccessful defence to the alleged crime can be huge. The primary objective of our Business & Financial Crime team is to always to minimise the impact of any investigation or prosecution on you, your senior personnel, and the business itself, where possible to stop the investigation in its tracks before any real disruption is caused.

Achieving this objective is often business-critical because the consequences of getting it wrong are considerable, encompassing three key areas:

The business is likely to face huge financial penalties if a breach is proved. If listed, it can also have a significant effect on the share price and therefore the company’s appeal to investors.

Allegations of corporate crime alone, nevermind conviction for a business crime offence, can cause irrevocable damage to the reputation of the business, often leading to substantial and sometimes catastrophic loss of business.

As well as the damage to your reputation, there is also a growing trend for the regulators to try and hold individuals accountable for corporate offending, with the threat of imprisonment and disqualification from office potential punishments.

In the current climate, we are definitely seeing an increased vigilance and determination for regulators to take action, where they believe businesses are in contravention of specific laws governing an industry sector, and we are also seeing an increased focus on holding directors and C-suite level officers criminally liable where a business fails to meet its legal obligations in some way.

With the stakes being as high as they are, we will strive for the absolute best result by meticulously managing an investigation from start to finish and will also represent you in court if that is where the investigation leads.

Where an investigation is getting underway, we can guide you through the entire process, providing you with clear instruction as to what you need to do at every stage. We will assess and review your current business operations, analyse the options available to you and then formulate a plan to help protect you, your business, and the reputation of both. If the investigation develops into a prosecution, we can also represent you in any court proceedings.

Our skills and expertise are not limited to representing you only when an investigation has begun; we can also help prior to an investigation. We’ll review your current business processes, policies, and procedures, advise you of your legal responsibilities, help identify any regulatory liabilities likely to cause problems in the future and work with you to devise tailored solutions to help remedy any issues.

During the course of any investigation, you may be required to attend an interview with the police or the appropriate authorities, this can be both stressful and intimidating, whatever the circumstances surrounding your case. Our solicitors will assist you with detailed preparation and support you throughout the interview process. We also understand that such investigations are not normally confined to the standard working week and provide an emergency 24/7 response service to clients to attend PACE interviews.

It’s not just an individual that can be held criminally liable, your business too may be held criminally accountable for the actions of an employee if it has failed to detect and prevent crimes such as money laundering and fraud. Our business & financial crime solicitors draw on their considerable expertise to advise and represent the business in order to minimise the financial and reputational damage any investigation or prosecution might bring.

Because prevention is always preferable to cure, we can help your business develop policies and procedures to aid in the prevention of future crimes taking place and report them if they do. We will advise you on carrying out appropriate risk assessments, due diligence, auditing, and monitoring and will train the relevant staff on the appropriate anti-corruption legislation.

Whilst you may take all the appropriate steps to minimise the risk of corporate crime within your business, you’re never immune to a future investigation, so we will advise you on how to prepare for them, with a view to minimising the disruption and potential damage to the reputation of you and your business.

The prospect of a regulatory investigation can be daunting for anyone, whatever the circumstances but when the reputation and financial well-being of you and your business are potentially at stake, it’s vital that you seek representation and advice from qualified legal professionals as soon as is feasibly possible. The sooner you contact us, the more time we have to meticulously prepare for any investigation or potential prosecution, maximising your chances of a successful resolution to the situation.

Operating nationally, we can offer advice and representation to any of the following individuals and business types:

Our business & financial crime lawyers excel across the whole range of criminal and regulatory corporate defence, specialising, but not limited to the following major categories of corporate defence work:

Part of a nationally recognised full-service law firm, our team understands the sensitivities and importance of your business addressing criminal & regulatory investigation with the utmost care and decisive action when the unexpected happens. We appreciate the stress such a situation may carry, so we ensure that all our clients are treated with the utmost respect, whilst guaranteeing absolute discretion and complete confidentiality.

We also understand that business has to continue as, so our approach is always highly commercial, always putting business continuity at the heart of our advice and representation.

Over 30 years of helping defend businesses like yours have taught us that it’s best for the client to work with the investigating authority, so we will always try and facilitate this, whilst fighting tirelessly to defend you.

We have huge experience in helping clients overcome the impact and actions that may be taken against you or your business when investigations gather pace. We have direct experience in helping clients to address or overcome the toughest obstacles when faced with actions such as:

We will represent you at every stage of the process, from preparing for the initial investigation to representing you in court.

Our considerable experience has allowed us to become skilled at reading and cross-examining witnesses. We are able to formulate comprehensive arguments to challenge case theories and are adept at making speeches to both judges and juries. We are skilled at reading witnesses, cross-examining, challenging case theories and making speeches to judges and juries. All this impacts the advice that you get and means you’re fully prepared at all times.

With the expansion of regulation impacting virtually every sphere of business and commerce, and with an increased appetite for the regulatory bodies to act, the number of investigations and prosecutions has been on the increase over the last decade.

Our Regulatory Corporate Defence team is here to help in your hour of need.

We have experienced corporate, business & financial crime solicitors ready to answer your enquiries via email or telephone.

The expertise of the Criminal Law & Regulatory Corporate Defence team at Lupton Fawcett is known for its high success rates, its efficiency, its confidentiality, commercial acumen, and its ability to make big problems for businesses go away. Lupton Fawcett is a leading full-service law firm and, as such, our Corporate Crime team works hand in hand with specialist industry-focused legal teams across our firm, such as our Corporate and Employment team sand our Commercial disputes team. This enables us to provide clients with a highly-specialised and tailored solution for business crime and regulatory investigation challenges.

Our business crime solicitors act regularly for corporate clients across the United Kingdom – we can support your needs wherever you live in England and Wales. We also provide specialist niche legal and commercial services for Irish companies doing business in the UK.

We will always respond promptly, and we will be happy to help.