Bark & Co’s clients benefit from the support of one of the country’s leading fraud and business crime firms. It’s highly-skilled lawyers are committed to providing top class advice at every stage of proceedings. If it can prevent expensive litigation then it will; if not then it will fight tenaciously to protect its clients’ interests.
The firm: Established in 1996 by Giles Bark-Jones, Bark & Co has developed into one of the UK’s most progressive and successful fraud firms. A member of the Specialist Fraud Panel, it handles commercial and criminal fraud, business and tax regulation, tax investigations, white-collar crime and serious crime for individuals, national and international companies and other bodies. The firm has also established itself as a leader in the field of cash and asset recovery in both criminal and civil courts.
Bark & Co prides itself on the individual qualities of its people, the collective strength of its teams, and their skill in tailoring advice to meet each client’s individual needs. This flexible approach and rigorous commitment to quality has allowed the firm to win significant amounts of work through client referrals.
Bark & Co’s initial response to business disputes is to research, analyse and obtain a clear understanding of the nature of any dispute with a view to resolving it quickly and at minimum cost.
Business disputes are increasingly common in the current economic climate but, in our experience, most can be settled without recourse to expensive Court proceedings. In the first instance we employ full use of Alternative Dispute Resolution methodologies to ascertain whether agreement can be achieved by other means – for example mediation.
Bark & Co’s initial response to business disputes is to research, analyse and obtain a clear understanding of the nature of any dispute with a view to resolving it quickly and at minimum cost.
Business disputes are increasingly common in the current economic climate but, in our experience, most can be settled without recourse to expensive Court proceedings. In the first instance we employ full use of Alternative Dispute Resolution methodologies to ascertain whether agreement can be achieved by other means – for example mediation.
Where Court proceedings cannot be avoided, our expert team will work tenaciously to ensure that the litigation process is pursued in the most efficient, timely and cost effective manner to achieve the best possible outcome for our client.
Commercial litigation covers a wide range of disputes from misuse of intellectual property and violations of securities law to employment disputes and breaches of contract. Our clients range from individuals to large corporations in UK and abroad. In all cases we ensure their specific requirements are matched by a team of appropriately able and experienced lawyers.
Mr Kweku Adoboli was granted bail after a successful bail application at Southwark Crown Court. Mr Tim Harris, Solicitor on this matter said his client was “delighted, very emotional and would like to thank all his family and friends for their support”. Mr Adoboli is due to be released from Wandsworth prison June 11th pending the bail terms being satisfied.Mr Kweku Adoboli was granted bail after a successful bail application at Southwark Crown Court. Mr Tim Harris, Solicitor on this matter said his client was “delighted, very emotional and would like to thank all his family and friends for their support”. Mr Adoboli is due to be released from Wandsworth prison June 11th pending the bail terms being satisfied.Mr Giles Bark-Jones, partner at Bark and Co Solicitors said “Our client is both emotional and delighted at the outcome of today’s bail hearing. He looks forward to working on his case at our London offices.”See below press coverage from BBC News:A City trader accused of a £1.4bn ($2.2bn) fraud at the London offices of Swiss banking giant UBS is to be freed from Wandsworth Prison on bail.Kweku Adoboli, 32, will be released on Monday with an electronic tag ahead of his trial in September, a bail hearing at Southwark Crown Court heard.He was “delighted” by the decision, his lawyer Giles Bark-Jones said.The trader, who was arrested in September last year, denies two charges of false accounting and two of fraud.Mr Bark-Jones told the BBC: “Our client is both emotional and delighted at the outcome of today’s bail hearing. He looks forward to working on his case at our London offices.”Mr Adoboli, of Clark Street, east London, is accused of unauthorised trading while working for UBS’s global synthetic equities division, where he bought and sold exchange traded funds.
Bark & Co Solicitors London: Deferred Prosecution Agreements l Newsvine
The director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and the Solicitor General, Edward Garnier QC, have recently made no secret of the fact that they consider the criminal justice system to be incapable of dealing with corporate prosecutions in a way that refects commercial realities. The blunt impact of a prosecution of a company has the impact of damaging innocent parties including employees, shareholders and creditors. Garnier cited the cautionary example of the ill-effects of prosecution caused to Arthur Andersen, eventually acquitted on charges of obstruction of justice by the US Supreme Court, many years after the allegations had destroyed the company. US prosecutors have a tool at their disposal, the deferred prosecution agreement (DPA), which is being touted as a viable alternative to the present options of either prosecution or civil recovery. Much of the impetus for the reform has been caused by the difficulties faced by the SFO when they sought to prosecute Innospec. The SFO effectively had already agreed with the company, pre-sentencing, the nature of the sentence in return for a guilty plea. This was criticized by Thomas LJ who reminded the SFO that it is for the Judge to determine sentence at his discretion and especially that any plea must be “rigorously scrutinized in open court”.
The US Approach
In the US, DPAs are considered a hugely important weapon in the armoury of a highly successful prosecutor – the Department of Justice, which entered into nine DPAs in 2009. The DPA does pretty much what it says on the tin, deferring criminal prosecution pending certain terms and conditions being agreed (and adhered to) and fled in a formal indictment at court. Typical conditions are that prosecution is deferred for two - three years with the payment of a fine commensurate with the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, disgorgement of profits, a clear out of implicated directors, a possible pull-out from the market in which the wrongdoing is admitted, and the possible instruction of a court appointed monitor where the corporate does not have proper anti-corruption procedures presently in place.
The appointment of monitors has been particularly contentious in the US where there have been allegations of a lack of transparency in their appointment, cronyism and high cost. The costs charged by monitors is particularly eye-watering to UK onlookers. Innospec were charged $50m for the corporate monitor (described by the sentencing Judge as “an outrage”), agreed as part of their DPA in the US.
The director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and the Solicitor General, Edward Garnier QC, have recently made no secret of the fact that they consider the criminal justice system to be incapable of dealing with corporate prosecutions in a way that refects commercial realities. The blunt impact of a prosecution of a company has the impact of damaging innocent parties including employees, shareholders and creditors. Garnier cited the cautionary example of the ill-effects of prosecution caused to Arthur Andersen, eventually acquitted on charges of obstruction of justice by the US Supreme Court, many years after the allegations had destroyed the company. US prosecutors have a tool at their disposal, the deferred prosecution agreement (DPA), which is being touted as a viable alternative to the present options of either prosecution or civil recovery. Much of the impetus for the reform has been caused by the difficulties faced by the SFO when they sought to prosecute Innospec. The SFO effectively had already agreed with the company, pre-sentencing, the nature of the sentence in return for a guilty plea. This was criticized by Thomas LJ who reminded the SFO that it is for the Judge to determine sentence at his discretion and especially that any plea must be “rigorously
scrutinized in open court”.
The US Approach
In the US, DPAs are considered a hugely important weapon in the armoury of a highly successful prosecutor – the Department of Justice, which entered into nine DPAs in 2009. The DPA does pretty much what it says on the tin, deferring criminal prosecution pending certain terms and conditions being agreed (and adhered to) and fled in a formal indictment at court. Typical conditions are that prosecution is deferred for two - three years with the payment of a fine commensurate with the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, disgorgement of profits, a clear out of implicated directors, a possible pull-out from the market in which the wrongdoing is admitted, and the possible instruction of a court appointed monitor where the corporate does not have proper anti-corruption procedures presently in place.
The appointment of monitors has been particularly contentious in the US where there have been allegations of a lack of transparency in their appointment, cronyism and high cost. The costs charged by monitors is particularly eye-watering to UK onlookers. Innospec were charged $50m for the corporate monitor (described by the sentencing Judge as “an outrage”), agreed as part of their
DPA in the US.
Are DPAs Right for the UK?
As it stands in the UK, the SFO has found it difficult, time consuming and costly to prosecute corporates in the UK for bribery and related offences as well as occasionally stymied by political interference. It is unlikely to find it any easier under the Bribery Act. It should also be noted that the SFO has been given no new money to prosecute offences committed under the Bribery Act. DPAs would therefore be a godsend. Corporates for their part may accept their criminality more readily should they be given the option of accepting a DPA as opposed to being prosecuted with all the economic damage that would entail. Explicit in the agreement of the DPA is that the company is properly prosecutable (ie, the identification principle is met) and the course of conduct meets the criminal test for prosecution ie, this isn’t a civil recovery under Pt.5 of POCA.
Thomas LJ again commented in his Innospec judgment that matters involving corrupt payments “will rarely be appropriate to the dealt with by a civil recovery order”. One wonders whether the judiciary will be resistant to DPAs which explicitly admit criminality but where penalty may be considered tantamount to a civil recovery order.
What Will DPAs Look Like?
The mechanics of DPAs are a long way from being ironed out. The DPAs must have the public’s confidence and, in the words of Garnier be “policed and controlled by the judiciary”. In the event that an offence is either detected, perhaps through a whistleblower, or self-reported and the SFO considers a
DPA may be an appropriate resolution, the Judge will become involved early, and before charges are brought to scrutinize any propsed agreement. This will be problematic. However, Judges in the criminal
justice system are already accustomed to providing early input in sentencing, through the procedure of Goodyear indications. In such cases where an individual is considering pleading to agreed facts he may request a-binding indication on sentence in open court, with reporting restrictions, from the trial Judge. Once given an indication, the defendant is not committed to pleading. It will be the type and severity of the sentence that will be the most contentious aspect of DPAs and the most at risk to accusations of a lack of transparency. In addition, it is essential for the corporates legal team to be able to advise with a degree of reasonable certainty what the likely sentence will be. The US has a system by which sentence can more or less be worked out on a calculator – that is an anathema to Judges here. In light of the Grazia Report, a number of guidelines were introduced in this area (eg, Attorney General’s Guidelines on Pleas, and the SFO Guidelines on Self Reporting), which are instructive for advisers and clients. In
the absence of settled Court of Appeal case law on corporate sentencing, properly debated and approved sentencing guidelines (related to the guidelines already issued by the sentencing council for theft and statutory fraud offences) setting out procedure and factors affecting sentence would be helpful in answering criticism of a lack of transparency as well as assisting parties to the DPA.Finally, it will be important that it is made explicit that while DPAs may prove an alternative to prosecution for corporates, where individual criminality is committed (as is necessary for the corporate to meet the identification principle), DPAs will not provide immunity to those directors deserving of prosecution.
We consider that as with most US developments in business crime, DPAs are likely to prove popular over here with the SFO. The principal question exercising legislators will be how to ensure that DPAs have the public’s confidence that they are fair and just while ensuring that Judges’ concerns will be met and the sacrosant principles underpining sentencing will not be underminded.
As one of the leading serious fraud firms in UK, Bark & Co regularly have to advise their clients on the implications of money laundering charges which often accompany investigations and prosecutions of fraud. UK legislation is wide ranging and recent changes to the law have increased the likelihood of money laundering charges being pursued vigorously by the authorities. The team at Bark & Co are experts in the interpretation of the law and in particular the parameters open to the prosecuting authorities in respect of money laundering charges.
In the UK, primary legislation on money laundering includes the Terrorism Act 2000, the Anti-Terrorism Crime & Security Act 2001, the Proceeds of Crime Act 2005 and the Serious Crime and Police Act 2005. Secondary legislation comprises Money laundering Regulations 2003 and 2007. These increasingly stringent regulations put the onus on businesses to ensure that certain controls are in place to prevent them being used for money laundering purposes including customer due diligence measures and internal controls and monitoring systems.
Under UK law, it is a money laundering offence when a person enters into, or becomes concerned in, an arrangement which facilitates by whatever means the requisition, retention, use or control of criminal property (assets or money) by another person. In many cases, the authorities seek to block suspected money laundering activities at an early stage by applying severe constraints even where there is scant evidence of wrong doing. Actions include forfeiture of assets etc.
Bark & Co frequently has cases under way where our clients are facing both fraud and money laundering charges. In one such recent example the FSA and City of London Police had mounted a combined operation into a large boiler room fraud based overseas. This case has been singled out as a good example of the increasing scale and prevalence of this type of fraud and demonstrates how international operations are being used to bypass the UK financial regulations and authorities to launder money abroad. In another fully contended, cut-throat trial, our client was implicated in a conspiracy to defraud a bank of more than £200M, setting up several offshore accounts to money launder the proceeds of the fraud. In all cases, Bark & Co set out to ensure that our experience and expertise is carefully matched to client requirements, utilising the best legal counsel where necessary to achieve the best outcome.
As one of the leading serious fraud firms in UK, Bark & Co regularly have to advise their clients on the implications of money laundering charges which often accompany investigations and prosecutions of fraud. UK legislation is wide ranging and recent changes to the law have increased the likelihood of money laundering charges being pursued vigorously by the authorities. The team at Bark & Co are experts in the interpretation of the law and in particular the parameters open to the prosecuting authorities in respect of money laundering charges.
In the UK, primary legislation on money laundering includes the Terrorism Act 2000, the Anti-Terrorism Crime & Security Act 2001, the Proceeds of Crime Act 2005 and the Serious Crime and Police Act 2005. Secondary legislation comprises Money laundering Regulations 2003 and 2007. These increasingly stringent regulations put the onus on businesses to ensure that certain controls are in place to prevent them being used for money laundering purposes including customer due diligence measures and internal controls and monitoring systems.
Under UK law, it is a money laundering offence when a person enters into, or becomes concerned in, an arrangement which facilitates by whatever means the requisition, retention, use or control of criminal property (assets or money) by another person. In many cases, the authorities seek to block suspected money laundering activities at an early stage by applying severe constraints even where there is scant evidence of wrong doing. Actions include forfeiture of assets etc.
Bark & Co frequently has cases under way where our clients are facing both fraud and money laundering charges. In one such recent example the FSA and City of London Police had mounted a combined operation into a large boiler room fraud based overseas. This case has been singled out as a good example of the increasing scale and prevalence of this type of fraud and demonstrates how international operations are being used to bypass the UK financial regulations and authorities to launder money abroad. In another fully contended, cut-throat trial, our client was implicated in a conspiracy to defraud a bank of more than £200M, setting up several offshore accounts to money launder the proceeds of the fraud. In all cases, Bark & Co set out to ensure that our experience and expertise is carefully matched to client requirements, utilising the best legal counsel where necessary to achieve the best outcome.
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A City trader from London accused of gambling away a record £1.4 billion in a banking fraud has been granted bail.
Kweku Adoboli, 32, from Clark Street, Whitechapel, east London, is accused of losing the money while working for Swiss banking giant UBS.
He denied two counts of fraud and two counts of false accounting at an earlier hearing but was remanded in custody.
After a bail hearing held behind closed doors at Southwark Crown Court, Adoboli was granted bail on the condition that he must reside at a friend’s house and abide by a curfew enforced using an electronic tag.
A sum of surety, put up by friends but which was not disclosed publicly, was also imposed.
Adoboli was said to be “delighted” to have been given bail.
He is due to stand trial in September with a possible preliminary hearing scheduled for July 20.
