Global Investigations

We help businesses and individuals navigate every stage in the process of an investigation, whether that’s responding to regulators, managing internal investigations, or facing the risk of litigation or prosecution.

We act for corporates, financial institutions, funds, partnerships and senior individuals, often in matters involving multiple jurisdictions and regulatory, civil and criminal exposure.

We are regularly instructed in high-profile and business-critical investigations. Our recent work includes matters involving the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO), Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), HMRC and overseas regulators such as the US Department of Justice (US DoJ), the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

We also conduct internal investigations for clients following incidents such as whistleblower allegations, audit findings and irregularities or historic concerns. Where appropriate, we advise on self-reporting and help clients design and implement compliance and remediation programmes to mitigate regulatory risk.

Our advice and support for clients includes:

• financial services, including market abuse, mis-selling, insider dealing, systems and controls, conduct risk and senior management responsibility;
• business crime, including bribery and corruption, fraud, money laundering, sanctions breaches and complex financial crime;
• tax investigations, from HMRC enquiries through to ADR, litigation and global coordination in disputes with multiple authorities;
• claw, including cartel investigations, dawn raids and follow-on damages claims;
• employment-related misconduct, including breach of fiduciary duty, team moves, bonus claims, confidential information and discrimination; and
• corporate governance, including board-level concerns, M&A-related investigations, shareholder disputes and breach of duty allegations.

Prompt and cost-effective data collation, review and analysis is critical to any investigation. Regulators are increasingly focused on their own use of technology-assisted review and we have extensive experience in this area. Working closely with our Case Management Unit, we also integrate AI into our investigation protocols where appropriate, helping clients to achieve outcomes that are robust, efficient and commercially sound.

We are known for the clear, pragmatic advice we provide in complex situations. We make sure that our advice matches the wider business strategy of our clients, whether that’s resolving the issue discretely, preparing for enforcement action, or in the robust defence of follow-on litigation.

Work highlights include:

• advising an overseas-headquartered investment bank on an FCA enforcement investigation relating to an unauthorised trading incident;
• representing a client who was subject to an SFO dawn raid, undertaken in conjunction with European enforcement partners. We advised the corporate following the raid and within nine months their status was dropped from suspect to witness;
• advising a consultancy firm on an investigation by the FCA into alleged insider dealing and market abuse in relation to a large and politically sensitive M&A transaction;
• acting for an individual whistleblower whose allegations exposed non-financial misconduct in the insurance industry and triggered enforcement proceedings against a major player in the industry;
• defending a series of high-profile cases involving collective proceedings and achieving the settlement of a separate claim brought on behalf of around 170 investment funds. This follows allegations that a group of the world’s leading investment banks participated in several cartels in the global foreign exchange market; and
• investigation into gross misconduct by senior executives and the exercise of bad leaver provisions on their exit.