Corporate Compliance

Our vast experience in acting for clients following failures of compliance means that we are ideally placed to design effective compliance programmes for corporate clients thereby regulatory or investigative intervention.

Services

The legal areas in which we can provide compliance advice include:

• Anti-corruption
• Anti-money laundering (AML)
• Corporate Risk
• Fraud Prevention
• Financial Services & Markets Act
• Data Protection
• Health & Safety
• Corporate manslaughter

The advice we provide on compliance involves:

• Initial scoping of the compliance burdens
• Drafting policies and directives
• Training employees up to board level
• Due diligence enquiries
• Monitoring ongoing compliance

Anti-Money Laundering (AML)

Peters & Peters’ expertise in advising clients on compliance in this area is as long-established as the legislation itself, and is grounded in our matchless reputation as criminal lawyers.

Because we are criminal litigators at our core, this makes us the obvious choice when a crisis erupts. We are highly experienced in making reports to Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) and have a good relationship with them.

We are also experienced in obtaining consent to transact, particularly on urgent matters. If the disclosure leads to or links in to an investigation, our experience in the field means we can advise on preparing witness statements, disclosure of documents, and protecting our client’s position up to a trial and beyond.

We are recognised as pre-eminent trainers in the field of AML and provide advice to law firms, accounting firms, money transfer businesses and financial services providers on complying with what is arguably the world’s strictest AML regime.

We help our clients assess risk in their particular sphere of work, and shape their AML policies so they can be risk averse, but continue to be agile and cutting edge.

Corporate Risk

Companies face enhanced regulation and greater sanction for regulatory non-compliance than they have ever faced before.

We are expert at helping companies reduce exposure to risk. A tick box approach is an inadequate response to risk and will not satisfy regulators and prosecutors if criticisms are made of a company’s policy. We are able to assist in putting together a strategy which minimizes risk.

We have years of experience advising companies facing difficult regulatory issues and guiding them through the reports and actions needed to remedy defects in their policies or procedures.

Where regulatory or criminal proceedings have been brought against companies we are able to represent them.

Fraud Prevention

We have wide experience in tracing and recovering the proceeds of fraud and our work in compliance and corporate governance enables us to provide organisations with effective advice regarding fraud prevention and protection.

We are able to advise corporations on potential exposure to fraud and risk related liability in their operations both within and outside the UK.

Data Protection

We have advised on numerous data protection issues including:

• Registration
• Employee disputes
• Enquiries from the Information Commissioner's Office
• Data subject access requests
• International transfers of information

Our clients include governments, UK and overseas corporations and corporate investigation firms. We advise on project oriented matters and data protection policies of wider application. These include EU wide data sharing projects.

We have seen an increase in regulatory intervention through the use of search powers where breaches are suspected. Businesses need to take the new regulations on board. 

Clients

We have advised a range of bodies both in the UK and overseas, including governments, major corporations, professionals (e.g. lawyers, accountants, regulated business and money service bureaux).

Case Studies

We have been retained by the London office of a large offshore law firm to provide advice on UK money laundering compliance, and in particular compliance with the 2007 Money Laundering Regulations.

We were retained to advise a firm of accountants that had discovered fraud inside one of their audit client companies. We provided advice relating to a section 394 ‘noisy withdrawal’ and a disclosure to SOCA.

We have been retained by a large banking and financial services group to provide advice on money laundering compliance and on their response to future financial crime legislation.

We advised a large privately owned conglomerate on the status of their business under the Money Laundering Regulations 2003 in the light of the activity based definitions in the MLR 2003.