Stuart’s practice focuses on matters involving allegations of misconduct by companies, directors, public officials and financial professionals.
He acts for individuals and corporates investigated and prosecuted by the SFO, FCA, HMRC and specialist divisions of the CPS and advises victims of financial crime. He assists corporates with internal investigations and in their interactions with the criminal justice system and regulators. He has considerable experience in Proceeds of Crime Act proceedings.
Stuart advises on a range of matters affecting companies including bribery, fraud, anti-money laundering, sanctions, data protection, brand and content protection and consumer protection. He has a wealth of prosecution experience to draw upon and maintains a specialist prosecution practice, including private prosecutions.
He has complementary experience of advising and acting in respect of individual and company insolvency and has acted for a director in contested company director disqualification proceedings. He has appeared in cases before the tax tribunals as leading junior, led junior and alone.
Since co-authoring the Butterworths’ Guide to the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 Stuart has maintained a keen interest in this area, conducting confiscation, restraint and enforcement hearings. Recently, he was invited to contribute to the Law Commission’s work on suggested reform of the law of confiscation. He has experience in dealing with orders obtained on behalf of foreign prosecutors by MLA, acting in the high-profile successful discharge application of a restraint order obtained on behalf of the Vatican. He has considerable experience in account freezing and cash forfeiture cases: recent matters have seen the release of the trading accounts of a bitcoin brokerage and a construction company.
Stuart has a longstanding specialism in Intellectual Property Crime and content protection. He is instructed by a variety of rightsholders and provides detailed advice on the substantive law and on investigations and procedure. He has spoken on IP crime at the Cambridge Symposium on Economic Crime.
Stuart acts for clients in proceedings before a diverse range of disciplinary tribunals and regulators. These have included governing bodies in respect of the accountancy profession, the Regulatory Decisions Committee of the FCA, the Electoral Commission and the internal disciplinary committee of a political party.
MA (Cantab) (law), Fitzwilliam College