BCL Solicitors LLP recognised as a leading firm in The Legal 500 UK 2023-2024 Guide
BCL Solicitors LLP are pleased to be once again recognised as a top-tier firm with an extensive team...
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Partner
Richard Sallybanks
“He is a master tactician in how to represent people in these difficult high-value, long-running cases.”
Chambers HNW, 2022
Richard Sallybanks is a specialist in defending individuals and companies in domestic and international financial crime investigations, including in connection with proceeds of crime issues, asset freezes, the mutual legal assistance regime and Interpol.
Financial Crime and Regulatory Investigations
Richard represents senior executives and HNW (High Net Worth) individuals in financial crime and regulatory investigations. He is ranked in Band 1 for Financial Crime (Individuals) by Chambers and Partners and is in Legal 500’s ‘Hall of Fame’ for Fraud: White-Collar Crime (Advice to Individuals). His experience includes:
- SFO (Serious Fraud Office) investigations and prosecutions:
- Fraud and False Accounting (Tchenguiz / Kaupthing Bank; Barclays / Qatar; Tesco [successful defence of Commercial Director at trial]);
- Bribery and corruption, including overseas corruption (Mabey & Johnson; Depuy / Johnson & Johnson; Alstom; Airbus; Petrofac);
- FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) and Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) investigations: money laundering, insider dealing, market abuse and ‘fit and proper’ inquiries;
- CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) investigations: the cartel offence (including price fixing, market sharing and bid rigging);
- HMRC investigations;
- Investigations by the International Corruption Unit of the NCA (National Crime Agency);
- Compelled interviews and interviews under caution conducted by the SFO, FCA, CMA, HMRC and NCA; and
- Challenging search warrants (including the successful Judicial Review of the SFO’s search warrants in the Tchenguiz investigation).
International Criminal Investigations
Richard represents senior executives and HNW individuals subject to investigation overseas (whether or not also subject to investigation in the UK). His cross-border experience includes criminal investigations conducted by the authorities in the US, India, Pakistan, Denmark, France, Italy, Switzerland and Russia and involves:
- Project managing and coordinating teams of international lawyers, experts, forensic accountants, and reputation advisors;
- Removing red notices published by Interpol;
- Responding to requests from overseas authorities for documents, interviews or asset freezes in the UK under the international MLA (mutual legal assistance) regime; and
- Challenging overseas asset freezes.
Proceeds of Crime
Richard advises on issues arising under POCA (the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002) and is ranked in Band 1 by Chambers and Partners in POCA Work and Asset Forfeiture. His experience includes advising on:
- Money laundering offences under POCA including when to seek consent from the NCA by filing a SAR (Suspicious Activity Report);
- Cash seizure, detention and forfeiture;
- The UWO (Unexplained Wealth Orders) regime;
- Pre-charge restraint orders; and
- The confiscation regime under POCA
Speaking
Richard is regularly invited to speak on issues within his expertise:
- ABA (American Bar Association) 10th annual White Collar Crime conference, London 2022: “Are we witnessing an erosion of the Rule of Law?”
- GIR Live: Global, Lisbon 2022: “Cross-border investigations: Strategies to stay ahead in an ever-evolving environment”
- GIR Live: London 2021: “KBR and Brexit: Where now for UK enforcers?”
- 33 Chancery Lane Business Crime Conference 2021: “Multi-jurisdictional investigations”
Publications and commentary
- Chambers & Partners Guide to UK solicitors: Financial Crime: Individuals – Practice Area Overview (October 2022)
- Richard Sallybanks speaks to GIR on the SFO’s recent disclosure failings (August 2022)
- Richard Sallybanks speaks to The Times on SFO’s latest debate on outsourcing (May 2022)
- “The Serious Fraud Office: What’s on the horizon?” – Richard Sallybanks and Anoushka Warlow write for Fraud Intelligence (April 2022)
- “Another overturned Unaoil conviction and a grilling by the Justice Committee: how is 2022 looking so far for the Serious Fraud Office?” (April 2022)
- “So what’s going on with the Serious Fraud Office?” (March 2022)
- Richard Sallybanks speaks to The Times on recent failures in SFO bribery trials (February 2022)
- Contributor: GIR – The Practitioner’s Guide to Global Investigations: “Individuals in cross-border investigations or proceedings: the UK perspective” (January 2022)
- “United States Strategy on Countering Corruption: US enforcement efforts rise whilst the SFO reports its lowest number of new investigations” (December 2021)
- “Another bad day for the Serious Fraud Office – but what are the broader implications?” (May 2021)
- Richard Sallybanks and Umar Azmeh write for The Law Society Gazette – “Is the FCA flexing its muscles as prosecutor?” (May 2021)
- Richard Sallybanks speaks to The Times on SFO’s DPA use after failed Serco trial (May 2021)
- “Another false dawn for UK criminal cartel enforcement?” (November 2020)
- “The test for dishonesty in criminal cases – Ghosh gone, Ivey confirmed” (May 2020)
- US publication Corporate Crime Reporter interviews Richard Sallybanks (November 2019)
Professional Memberships
- Fraud Lawyers Association
- American Bar Association
- International Bar Association
- Commercial Litigators’ Forum
Career
Richard joined BCL in 1995. He was made a partner in 1999 and is now the firm’s Managing Partner. Prior to joining BCL, Richard trained and qualified at (now) CMS, including time spent in CMS’ Hong Kong office, with an associated firm in Germany and on secondment at a financial regulator.
What the directories have said:
“Richard Sallybanks is very intelligent and calm.“
Chambers UK, 2023
“Richard Sallybanks – a calm analyst, an incisive mind, a great academic lawyer, and a hugely likeable presence put him in the Champions League placings.”
Legal 500, 2023
“…his key strengths are that he’s got a real attention to detail. Always on top of the detail of a case, has excellent judgement and is very hard-working.”
Chambers HNW, 2022
“He is a master tactician in how to represent people in these difficult high-value, long-running cases.”
Chambers HNW, 2022
“Richard is incredibly thorough and has his clients’ interests at heart.”
Chambers UK, 2022
“He is a first-class solicitor: client-friendly and tactically astute.”
Chambers UK, 2022
“He is first-class. He is very thoughtful and totally experienced. He is really bright and intelligent.”
Chambers UK, 2022
“Richard is a legend in this area.”
Chambers Insights, 2022
“He is very friendly, easy to work with and good at bringing together a team. Richard works effectively with clients, and he couldn’t be an easier person to deal with. He is very easy to get along with, exercises excellent judgement and is really trustworthy.”
Chambers Insights, 2022
“He is very responsive and good at managing many moving parts. Richard works very quickly and is always available for a call. He is good at manging high-stress situations.”
Chambers Insights, 2022
“Richard Sallybanks is a very respectful and well experienced senior lawyer. Very good understanding of the case. A very reliable and precious assessment ability on all “grey” matters of a casefile.”
The Legal 500, 2021
“He is absolutely first class. He is careful, considerate and concerned with his cases and likes to see the whole picture.”
“He knows everything there is to know about everything.”
Chambers UK, 2021
“He’s thoughtful, exceptionally intelligent and he has a forensic eye for detail without losing the bigger picture,”
“… one of the great all-rounders”
Chambers UK, 2020
“… is absolutely first-class,”
“Richard is really, really, really good. He is careful, considerate and concerned with his cases. He likes to see the whole picture – he wants to make sure that we get it right from all angles”
“… he is a star”
Chambers HNW, 2020
“He is outstanding: he is very intelligent, very commercial and hands-on.”
“… a brilliant tactical lawyer and a great strategist,” as well as “highly intelligent, very organised and very experienced.”
Chambers UK, 2019
“He can handle tough cases in obscure jurisdictions and has an amazing reputation,” “He is a go-to person and is a very thoughtful and cerebral lawyer who has a wonderful reputation – he is smart and is also a nice man.”
“… very astute tactically”
“… he has a deep reservoir of knowledge and is very, very shrewd.”
Chambers HNW, 2019
“… strategically savvy, bright and has a wealth of trial experience”
The Legal 500, 2019
“… he is extremely thorough, his judgement is excellent and his client handling is superlative.”
Chambers UK, 2018
“He has a very serious understanding of the law and the client.”
“… very valuable package of skills and knowledge for high net worth clients,”
“… excellent with clients, extremely hard-working and utterly dependable.”
“He’s a very good analyst; he sees all the evidence at once and sees the wood for the trees,”
“… he’s also very good with numbers – lots of people pretend they can read a set of accounts, but he actually can.”
Chambers HNW, 2018
“… if you need a solicitor to act in an SFO corporate crime raid, he is your man: he knows everything about companies and everything about criminal cases.”
“… very wise, with a cool head, an enormous ability to master the detail of a case and a great tactical brain.”
“He is an invaluable asset to any defence team.”
Chambers UK, 2017
“… is a calm, experienced and highly able lawyer”
“… in-depth, real and proper knowledge and experience with regulatory bodies,”
“He can anticipate their actions.”
“… he is extremely thorough, his judgement is excellent and his client handling is superlative. He is extremely attentive to the details, his preparation of the case papers is of the highest quality.”
Chambers HNW, 2017
“He has a very good strategic sense and knows when to intervene and when to take proactive action on behalf of a client.”
“… a first-rate lawyer who gets involved in top proceeds of crime work.”
Chambers UK, 2016
“… he knows the law inside out, he’s brilliant with the clients and very strategic in his thinking. He has a really good feel for how state agencies function.”
Chambers UK, 2015
Articles by Richard Sallybanks
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