A significant amount of our caseload involves offences of fraud and dishonesty. Fraud cases often involve serious financial loss and are often complex both legally and factually. Serious fraud cases almost inevitably create a vast amount of documentation which we are experienced in handling. We will often make papers available to our clients in electronic format.

Our clients in such cases are often professional people who are not used to the criminal justice system. We do our best to ensure that our clients are kept fully informed of the progress of their case throughout the often lengthy procedure and that their case receives the level of attention it requires at all times.

We have been a member of the Legal Services Commission’s Serious Fraud Panel for a number of years. Only firms on that Panel can deal with cases designated as Serious Fraud Cases. We have two Serious Fraud Supervisors, Richard Locke and Nahid Khaliq.

The LSC intends to create a “Very High Cost Cases Panel” to replace the Serious Fraud Panel from January 2008. Only members of this Panel will be able to deal with cases which are deemed to fall within the “VHCC” structure. These cases are administered by the LSC’s Complex Cases Unit and will extend beyond fraud cases.

Any serious fraud case will be allocated to a senior solicitor to supervise. Usually that solicitor will actively work on the case on a daily basis but is likely to be assisted by other staff who will be carrying out specific tasks as requested by the supervising solicitor. In this way we work as a team to ensure that the case is fully and thoroughly prepared for trial.

Fraud cases do not always fall within the VHCC framework. However, the issues involved are often no less complicated. The police investigation may still have created huge amounts of paperwork. In all such cases, a senior solicitor will have day to day conduct of the case.

Examples of the types of fraud cases in which we have acted include:-

• VAT “Missing Trader” frauds
• Boiler Room Frauds
• Money Laundering cases
• Frauds by solicitor clients
• Corruption cases