Chambers of Jonathan Laidlaw KC

2 Hare Court acts for both businesses and individuals on all kinds of criminal and regulatory issues, such as criminal cartel offences, fraud, financial crime, sanctions, confiscations, asset seizures, private prosecutions and internal investigations. Regarding the latter, Jonathan Laidlaw KC acted for the Bank of England in an investigation into a former Barclays CEO Jes Staley’s alleged misrepresentation of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the now-deceased financier, convicted sex offender and associate of Prince Andrew. Corruption specialist Jonathan Kinnear KC successfully acted for the SFO in its case against Glencore, which ultimately pleaded guilty to paying millions in bribes to gain preferential access to oil in Africa and was subsequently subject to fines and confiscations amounting to £281m. In R v Coleman & Fisher, the first contentious prosecution of its kind for market manipulation offences under FSMA 2000, Merry van Woodenberg successfully acted as junior prosecution counsel for the Financial Conduct Authority, resulting in the former CFO of a listed company being found to have made misleading statements to auditors and the market.