Anita Clifford is highly approachable and ranked in the Legal 500 and Chambers UK for Money Laundering & Proceeds of Crime work, where she has been described as a fantastic rising star who is knowledgeable and reassuring in the delivery of her advice. Anita has also been shortlisted by Legal 500 for the 2024 Financial Crime Junior of the Year.
Anita defends and prosecutes across the range of Chambers’ practice area. She has a particularly busy defence practice spanning serious drugs, firearms and violent offences.
Alongside her general Crime practice, Anita has a strong financial crime practice. She prosecutes and defends serious frauds and money laundering offences. She also regularly advises law firms and companies on anti-money laundering investigations and regulatory requirements, suspicious activity reporting and account freezing under Part 5 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. She also advises on the United Kingdom’s financial Sanctions regime. Anita is interested in the interplay between human rights and proceeds of crime and is part of the counsel team in the significant case of R (World Uyghur Congress) v Home Secretary, HMRC and NCA [2023] EWHC 88 which is the first case to consider proceeds of crime in the context of supply chains affected by forced labour. Anita is also currently instructed by Peters and Peters in relation to the Post Office ‘Horizon’ independent public statutory Inquiry.
Instructed by the Council of Europe, she has undertaken anti-money laundering and anti-corruption projects in Georgia, Moldova, Czech Republic and Serbia. She has also contributed to anti-corruption workshops in Kenya and Zambia with the African Union.
Originally from Australia, Anita qualified after a year as a Judge’s Associate in the Supreme Court of Queensland. She was a solicitor from 2011 in private and government practice, with her early years spent at a prominent criminal and human rights firm, defending vulnerable clients and gaining exposure to death in custody Inquests.
Anita is a contributor to the Lloyd’s Law Reports: Financial Crime and co-author of a book on the Criminal Finances Act 2017 with Jonathan Fisher KC.
She has been appointed to the Legal Action Committee of an NGO, Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) and supports several mentoring programmes aimed at diversity amongst aspiring barristers.
Publications:
‘Anti-Corruption Sanctions, The Bribery Act and Unexplained Wealth Orders’, Crim. L.R, 2022 1, p41-47, co-author
Criminal Finances Act 2017, Informa Law, 2018, co-author with Jonathan Fisher QC
Case Note: ‘Menci & Garlsson Real Estate SA and Others v. Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa (Consob) & Joined Cases Di Puma v. Consob and Consob v. Zecca (CJEU)’, International Legal Materials, 2018, 57(4), 583-615, author
‘Corporate Criminal Liability in the Supply Chain: A Coherent Divergence?’, Crim. L.R., 2018, p633-645, co-author
South Eastern Circuit
CBA
POCALA
Female Fraud Forum
Bar Transfer Test, BPP University (2017)
Master of Laws, London School of Economics: Distinction (2015)
BA / LLB, University of Queensland: First Class Honours (2009)