I am a leading corporate crime, professional discipline and financial services investigations lawyer with over 20 years’ experience. I represent clients under or at risk of criminal or regulatory investigation or prosecution: ‘the go to choice for a tough and no nonsense litigator who will leave no stone unturned in defence of clients’ Legal 500, 2019. I give expert legal, personal and practical advice to senior executives and corporates and specialise in FCA, SFO, CMA, CPS, ICO, HMRC, DOJ, SEC, police and professional discipline investigations eg SRA, IFoA, FRC.
I represent senior executives and firms through the stressful, uneasy and challenging time when faced with a criminal, regulatory or internal investigation that can impact on careers, reputation, health, wealth and business performance. My aim is to protect reputations and extricate a client from their involvement with an investigation as quickly as possible.
My client can be a suspect, under or at risk of investigation, whistleblower, witness or victim and my cases often have a cross-border element. My practice includes advice on internal investigations, responding to information requests, interview advice, self-reporting, compliance monitoring, training and M&A due diligence.
I have extensive experience defending complex FCA civil, criminal and regulatory cases for senior executives and firms. High profile FCA cases include LIBOR, Newton Investment Management, and insider dealing cases eg Neutec Pharma, Operation Tabernula, Operation Saturn, Oce/Mizuho. I help firms with systems and controls improvement, compliance monitoring, mis-selling, remediation and customer contact exercises.
The high profile SFO investigations I have been involved in recently include LIBOR (Barclays, Lloyds), BAT, Rolls-Royce, Autonomy, Quindell, Unaoil and overseas bribery. My clients are from the financial services, pharmaceutical, energy, engineering, professional services and aerospace sectors.
I am sought out and quoted in the FT, Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Evening Standard, New York Times, Bloomberg, Reuters, PA and am an expert commentator for BBC News. I speak regulatory at industry events.
I am interested in work culture and I write about diversity, inclusion and well-being in workplaces in national press and social media. I am a ‘CityInfluencer’ to encourage cultural change in the City, and speak at events and hold roundtables for employers to share best practice.
- Professional Discipline, Chambers 2019: “She’s very engaged, very committed to the cases, creative and tries to find the right solution for clients”.
- Financial Crime, Chambers 2019: Noted for her technical expertise in fraud and insider dealing investigations. “Highly committed to the defence of individuals”…”she really understands what clients are going through”.
- Financial Services, Legal 500 2019: ‘bright and hard-working” “wise beyond her years and brings heaps of experience to any dispute”.
- Fraud/White Collar Crime, Legal 500 2019: “well-regarded expert in white-collar crime”
Prior to joining Constantine Law, Sarah was a partner and led the Regulatory & Criminal Investigations Group in a large national law firm.
