Financial Law & Regulatory Investigations
Financial services regulation, regulatory enforcement and investigations, and the recovery of funds lost to investment fraud and cryptocurrency theft.
The same team handles two very different kinds of urgency. We advise banks, investment firms, payment institutions, fund managers and their directors on authorisation, conduct and supervision across the EU — and, when a supervisor comes asking, we run the response from the first hour, because that is when the record that decides the outcome is still being made. Separately, we act for individuals and businesses recovering funds lost to investment schemes and cryptocurrency theft, where the first days decide what can still be frozen.
What this area covers
- Tracing and recovery of funds lost to investment fraud and cryptocurrency theft
- Freezing injunctions, disclosure orders and enforcement against exchanges and payment providers
- Regulatory investigations, enforcement proceedings and settlement negotiations
- Dawn raids and formal information requests from supervisory authorities
- Authorisation and licensing of banks, investment firms, payment institutions and crypto-asset service providers
- MiFID II, MiCA and AML compliance programmes and governance reviews
- Senior management accountability, fit-and-proper and governance reviews
- Cross-border passporting and group supervision within the single market
Situations clients bring us
A supervisory authority has opened an investigation
The first seventy-two hours decide more than the following seven months. We manage document preservation, the interview schedule and every piece of correspondence with the regulator, and we tell you early whether the realistic endpoint is a settlement, a fine or a licence condition.
You need authorisation or passporting rights
Licensing files fail on governance and on substance more often than on the rulebook itself. We assemble the application, coordinate the competent authority's questions across member states, and prepare the board for the fitness-and-proper assessment that follows.
Money has been lost to an investment scheme or a cryptocurrency theft
Speed decides recovery. We move within days: tracing the flow of funds, applying for freezing and disclosure orders, and pressing exchanges and payment providers to preserve wallets and accounts before the trail disperses. Where several countries are involved, we run the steps in parallel rather than waiting for each to finish.
A compliance question has become an enforcement question
Most enforcement matters begin as ordinary supervisory correspondence that drifted. We review what has already been said, stop the drift, and put the matter on a footing where it can be resolved rather than escalated.
How we work
- One lawyer leads the response to the regulator; you have a single, accountable point of contact throughout.
- We are precise, early, about what must be disclosed, what may lawfully be withheld and what legal privilege protects — in each jurisdiction involved.
- We are candid about prospects. If settlement is the realistic outcome, we negotiate rather than posture.
The European dimension
Where cross-border practice makes the difference
Financial regulation is where European law is most genuinely supranational: ESMA, the EBA and the ECB sit above national supervisors, and a passport issued in one member state works in twenty-six others. From Brussels — home to the FSMA and much of the EU's financial rulebook — and with offices in Luxembourg, Amsterdam, Milan and Málaga, we handle the same group's obligations under several supervisory regimes at once, which is exactly where a referral network falls down.
Questions about financial law & regulatory investigations
Talk to a lawyer about financial law & regulatory investigations
An initial consultation of up to forty-five minutes is charged at a fixed fee of €150 excluding VAT, and waived where we go on to act for you on the same matter.