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Charles Thomson

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Charles Thomson is a partner and solicitor advocate in Baker McKenzie’s Dispute Resolution Practice Group in London. He co-manages the Business Crime Unit, and is part of the Financial Institutions Disputes, Contentious Trusts and Compliance and Investigations Groups. Charles joined the Firm as a trainee in 2002, and concurrently spent three months on secondment as a judicial assistant at the Royal Courts of Justice in the Civil Appeals Division. A solicitor advocate since 2007, Charles appears as an advocate in all Higher Courts in England and Wales. Chambers and Legal 500 both commend Charles for his legal practice. Charles is also listed as a Rising Star in Litigation by Legal Week.

The COVID-19 crisis presents fraudsters with a ripe opportunity to defraud businesses at a time when finances are tight, attention and resources are focused elsewhere, key staff may be absent and financial controls are under pressure. One of the simplest and most devastatingly effective of these frauds is a push payment fraud.

The science of compliance: SFO releases guidance on how it will assess corporate compliance programmes The SFO’s Operational Handbook1 has been updated with new guidance on how it will evaluate corporate compliance programmes (https://www.sfo.gov.uk/publications/guidance-policy-and- protocols/sfo-operational-handbook/). While the guidance is far less prescriptive than many corporates would wish and, in many…

On 10 February 2020 HMRC disclosed that it has 30 potential cases underway under the UK’s corporate criminal offence of “failure to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion” (“CCO”), split between nine ongoing investigations and 21 potential investigations (see here). Whilst there have been no confirmed CCO cases to date,…

DOWNLOAD ALERT On 3 October 2019, the United Kingdom and the United States signed a first-of-its-kind Bilateral Data Access Agreement (the “Agreement”), which is expected to reduce the time it takes UK and US law enforcement agencies to access electronic evidence held by technology companies located in each other’s territory.…

New Sentencing Guideline Following a consultation in 2018, the Sentencing Council has published a new sentencing guideline to come into effect on 1 October 2019 that will apply to sentences decided on or after that date. This new “General guideline” will apply to the sentencing of organisations and adult individuals.…

The Crime (Overseas Production Orders) Act 2019 (“Act”) received Royal Assent on 12 February 2019. The Act allows UK law enforcement agencies including the Serious Fraud Office (“SFO”), HMRC and the Financial Conduct Authority to apply for a court order with extra-territorial effect (an Overseas Production Order or “OPO”) to…