Harry has been a partner of BCL since 1995, having cross-qualified as a solicitor in 1991. Previously, he was employed as a barrister in the Tax & Trusts Department of Berwin Leighton, specialising in anti-avoidance litigation and trusts.
He is well known for acting for clients involved in the most serious cases investigated by bodies such as the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), and the National Crime Agency (NCA).
In addition, his wide-ranging practice has a heavy focus on acting for clients facing complex and high-value tax investigations conducted by HMRC where fraud is both suspected and not suspected. This is particularly so where there is concern that HMRC may have acted unfairly, or where deep experience of complex and high-value litigation is needed. He and his colleagues often act as part of cross-disciplinary teams that include the presence of pure technical tax specialists and/or pre-eminent firms of chartered accountants.
Recent and notable SFO cases in which he has acted for individual suspects include ENRC, Arena TV, British American Tobacco, Serco, Standard Bank, GPT/Airbus, Innospec, LIBOR.
His experience in older high-profile cases goes back to BAE, GP Noble, Maxwell, BCCI, Al-Fayed and the Michael Allcock case.
Harry has for many years been ranked by Chambers UK in: Financial Crime: Individuals – London (Band 1); Financial Crime: High Net Worth Individuals – UK (Band 1); and Tax Contentious: Fraud – UK Wide (Band 1). He is a member of the Legal 500’s “Hall of Fame”. He is also ranked in Lexology Index (formerly Who’s Who Legal) and Spear’s.
He is a founding member of the prestigious International Academy of Financial Crime Litigators, comprising leading business crime litigation lawyers worldwide in conjunction with the Basel Institute on Governance.
He has sat on the Fraud Forum of HMRC, established to consult on policy and operational issues on complex tax investigations and fraud, and sits (at the invitation of the Director of HMRC’s Fraud Investigation Service) on the Gold Group of HMRC’s Tax Crime Alliance. He continues to be involved through this group in high-level consultation on HMRC’s Code of Practice 9.
He is a graduate of St Edmund Hall, Oxford (open scholar, BA, BCL).