Rhys Meggy’s practice centres on defending allegations of financial criminality or regulatory impropriety on the part of professionals and corporates.
In commercial crime, Rhys’ expertise includes defending allegations of bribery and corruption; large-scale fraud and false accounting; tax evasion; insider dealing; breaches of the general prohibition under FMSA; anticompetitive behaviour; breaches of export controls; insolvency and company law offences; breaches of health and safety and environmental regulations; and money laundering. In addition to FCA, SFO, HMRC, CMA and IS work, Rhys has a particular niche in the defence of executives and corporates pursued by Companies House and the Office of National Statistics.
Rhys also has a well-established practice in financial services regulation, appearing before both the FCA’ s Regulatory Decisions Committee and/or the Upper Tribunal for both individuals and firms in connection with allegations of misconduct or challenges to authorisation decisions.
He has extensive practical experience of the intersection of the civil and criminal jurisdictions where he frequently advises parties to civil fraud litigation as to the criminal implications of the conduct at issue, both in the UK and offshore.
His general criminal work covers the entire spectrum of offences, not least: murder and manslaughter (including corporate); sexual offences; perverting the course of justice; and misconduct in public place. Rhys also has longstanding experience of advising on and/or appearing in: anonymity and/or reporting restriction applications; HMRC CoP8 and CoP9 tax investigations; HMRC compounding negotiations following from export finance breaches; judicial review and/or ‘section 59 CJPA’ proceedings relating to the seizure and retention of evidence; account freezing order (AFO), cash detention and civil forfeiture proceedings; disputes concerning LPP and Independent Counsel reviews.
Prior to coming to the Bar, Rhys worked at a law firm in the BVI, liquidating the feeder funds of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. Later, Rhys was seconded to advise a global investment bank in respect of a wide variety of financial misconduct issues, including dealings with regulators in the context of bribery, money laundering and tax compliance investigations.
Rhys won UK Financial Crime Junior of the Year at the Legal 500 Bar Awards 2022.
Called to the Bar - 2009