Practical LawConferences

Joss Saunders, solicitor, Oxfam’s General Counsel and Company Secretary. Joss has worked at Theodore Goddard and Blake Morgan Solicitors and joined Oxfam in 1998. He taught law in Warsaw University, Poland. He is a trustee of several charities, one of which he chairs.

Benoit Belhomme is a French national.  He studied Law in Paris and has been an “Avocat au Barreau de Paris” since 1987.

From 1986 to 1992, he worked for Clifford Chance successively in Paris and in London, where his main area of practice was Corporate as well as M&As.

In 1992, he joined the Rothmans Group, also with a focus on M&As and Commercial Law.  He was initially responsible for Africa though, as time went on and the Company’s ways of working changed, he came to be involved in counselling the business on a wide range of legal issues in all other regions as well.  These included joint ventures and acquisitions, risk management, regulatory and sponsoring (formula 1)  as well as privatisations in Eastern Europe following the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Following the BAT / Rothmans merger in 1999, he became General Counsel, Africa Middle East, a region subsequently extended to cover Eastern Europe (EEMEA – 85 countries).

He held this position for 13 years before moving to his current position of General Counsel for the Western Europe Region in 2011.  He is a member of the Western Europe Board of Directors, reporting to the Regional Director.  He is also a member of the Global Legal Board under the chairmanship of BAT’s General Counsel.

The Western Europe Region comprises 44 end‑markets and the Regional General Counsel’s responsibilities cover not only the legal function but also Anti-Illicit Trade and Security.

Benoit has been living in the UK for the last 23 year.  He is married, with two children.

Jonathan is the Head of Legal Services for Bosch in the United Kingdom and Ireland and serves as the region’s Compliance Officer.  The Bosch Group is a leading global supplier of technology and services with a large UK presence, employing over 4,200 people in over 40 locations.

Jonathan came from ESAB, a world leader in production of welding consumables and equipment, where he was Head of Legal, Rest of World; responsible for all jurisdictions other than the US and Europe.  Prior to ESAB, Jonathan worked in private practice at Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP.

Jonathan is married with three children and lives in Reigate, Surrey.

Satindar is a partner in Linklaters’ Dispute Resolution group and has experience in a broad range of commercial and financial services litigation and he is also the co-head of our newly established Risk, Regulation and Governance Operational Intelligence Group. He specialises in cross border fraud litigation, investigatory work relating to fraud, anti-bribery and corruption, advising companies on corporate safeguards and compliance procedures, aerospace and defence sector disputes and professional negligence cases.

He has in recent times acted for News Corp in connection with the phone hacking and corruption allegations, the administrators of Lehman Brothers International (Europe), Bayern LB in connection with claims against Bernie Ecclestone and BAE Systems in connection with their DOJ and SFO settlements. Satindar is the co-leader of the firm’s Industrials Sector, is the co-managing relationship partner for one of the firm’s “platinum” clients and is part of the litigation practice’s management team.

Lee Bradley joined Thomas Cook Group plc in 2012 and brought with him a deep knowledge of embedding the culture and practices of sound risk management, gained from working within organisations such as Manchester Airport Group plc, Co-op Group, Kwik Fit plc, Aviva PLC and Thames Water plc. Lee is accountable to the Audit Committee and the HSE Committee and leads a multi-discipline team across the Group.

Kimon is currently the Chief Compliance & Regulatory Officer of GE Working Capital Solutions (WCS), a division of GE Capital. WCS is responsible for factoring the receivables of all of the GE Industrial businesses, and purchases ~$63 billion receivables / year and has ~600,000 debtors located in over 160 countries.

Prior to his current role, Kimon was the Chief Compliance Officer for GE Capital’s mortgage business in the UK, regulated by the FCA. He joined GE over 8 years’ ago as a senior M&A lawyer and was responsible for a number of acquisitions, joint ventures and disposals in the Global Banking portfolio.  He has over 15 years’ experience in a range of industries, including financial services and telecoms, both in-house and in private practice.

Kimon holds a Doctorate of Laws and is based in London.

Dinah Spence LLB., MSc. is a Solicitor. She qualified in 1994 and spent 10 years in private practice, specialising in Commercial Litigation. Prior to leaving private practice she was a partner of London City law firm Charles Russell.

Dinah studied for her Masters in Corporate Governance and Ethics at Birkbeck, graduating in 2006. She is an experienced Compliance Officer having served for 6 years as Compliance Counsel –Europe & Asia for US listed auctioneer Sotheby’s and has been Group Compliance Officer for Macmillan Publishers since August 2010.

Dinah’s key areas of professional interest and expertise are international business ethics, anti-corruption and anti-money laundering, organisational change, coaching and development and investigation and audit.

A former journalist, Chris couples media knowledge with extensive litigation experience to help businesses and prominent individuals better use the law and related disciplines to solve problems that threaten their reputation or privacy. He specialises risk management in using his extensive defamation and privacy experience alongside his knowledge of how reputation problems unfold to help clients protect themselves from untoward media interest, dirty tricks campaigns and wider commercial disputes. He works extensively with corporate clients in helping in-house legal teams to better manage reputation threats and advises boards and other operational teams on the legal aspects of reputation issues.

Bruce Macmillan is General Counsel at Legal Practice Technologies. Bruce was Executive Director, Senior Commercial Legal Counsel at VISA Europe until April 2014. Prior to joining VISA Europe, Bruce was the        first General Counsel of the Legal Services Board (LSB), the oversight regulator for the English and Welsh legal profession. Bruce moved to the LSB from Dell Computers where he was European Senior Counsel for the Consumer, Retail and Wholesale distribution divisions. Prior to Dell, he was UK Head of Legal for the Swedish listed telecoms group Tele2, and for the private equity owned Alpha Telecom group. At the start of his in house career he worked at ONdigital/ITV Digital and at Cable & Wireless. Mr. Macmillan trained as an auditor with Arthur Andersen before started his legal career at Gouldens (now Jones Day) and also worked for SJ Berwin in Brussels before moving in house. He has been an active member of legal trade associations including the Commerce & Industry Group (where he was chair of the Corporate Governance Committee) and the IT Lawyers’ Forum.

James is a solicitor qualified to practice in England & Wales. He trained and qualified as a corporate lawyer, specialising in Mergers & Acquisitions. He has worked at several law firms in London where he specialised in cross-border M&A transactions. Before joining ENRC in September 2011 as a Senior Compliance Officer in London, James worked in the US at a law firm based in Chicago.

James is currently the Group Head of Compliance, a role he took in October 2012. James reports directly to the Group General Counsel and the Audit Committee on compliance activity.

Jonathan Stevens is the Head of Global Litigation for Atos.  He is responsible for the management and supervision of the group’s claims, disputes and litigations in over 55  countries where Atos operates.  He have been with Atos for 12 years and prior to that worked for KPMG.  Before that he spent 18 years in private practice where he was managing partner of a provincial law firm, working always in litigation.  He is  a solicitor and also a New York attorney.

Atos is an international information technology services company with annual revenues of over € 8 billion and over 80,000 employees. Serving a global client base, it delivers hi-tech transactional services, consulting and technology services, systems integration and managed services in Manufacturing, Retail, Public sector, Health, Transport, Financial Services, Telecoms, Media & Technology, Energy & Utilities. Atos has for many years been the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the Olympic Games.

Dominic is General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer for Solo Capital Partners LLP. He has created, set up and managed legal, compliance and risk teams at a number of financial institutions both in the UK, North America, Asia and Australia including Standard Chartered Bank, Gulf International Bank and CMC Markets. He has also set up a legal, regulatory and risk consultancy  company, Squaring the Circle.  Reporting to Solo’s CEO, Dominic’s remit covers not just the technical aspects of his role but also providing input  on commercial and business decisions and acting as a sounding board for the CEO and also business heads.  He has also been a director of a number of financial institutions and therefore has a unique take on whether GCs should be on Boards – and why.

John joined Travelers in 2012, and heads a team of six in-house lawyers as well as a compliance department of four. He also acts as Company Secretary.

John’s legal career in London began at Barlow Lyde & Gilbert, where he qualified as a solicitor in the firm’s aerospace insurance department.  He eventually moved to the London office of the US law firm LeBoeuf, Lamb Greene & MacRae (latterly known as Dewey & LeBoeuf) where he specialised in aviation claims, as well as large scale international insurance and reinsurance dispute resolution.

In 2002, John moved in-house to AIG as Regional Counsel for Central Europe and CIS, and in 2010 was appointed Deputy General Counsel for the Greater Europe region.

John studied English literature at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and law at the London School of Economics. He is married and has two sons.

James is Group Managing Director of Edelman’s Corporate & Financial division in London, and has advised some of the world’s major businesses and business leaders on their corporate positioning and strategic communications.

James has more than 17 years’ experience in communications, having joined Edelman in 2003, after seven years in parliament as a senior adviser to Liberal Democrat leaders Paddy Ashdown and Charles Kennedy. Before starting his current role, James ran Edelman’s Reputation and Risk Advisory offer and before that was the Managing Director of Edelman’s award winning 20-strong Public Affairs division.

An expert in strategic communications, he specializes in issues management, reputation management and citizenship. James has worked with executives at the most senior levels of major businesses in dealing with high profile and sometimes contentious issues.

James’ current and recent clients include Microsoft, Alfa Group, News Corporation, Alliance Bank and Diageo. He has advised leading global business figures including Rupert and James Murdoch, Sheldon Adelson and Petr Aven. James leads all of Edelman’s global communications and engagement for MalalaYousafzai, the Pakistani teenager and education activist shot by the Taliban.

Nick du Cros joined HarbourVest in 2012 as U.K. Legal and Compliance Officer, with responsibility for the Firm’s U.K. compliance program and assisting with legal and compliance matters relating to the firm’s global operations and products.

Nick joined HarbourVest from Pyramis Global Advisors (UK) Limited, the London affiliate of Fidelity Investments’ institutional asset management group, where he oversaw regulatory compliance and governance matters in the U.K. and Ireland.  His prior positions include Head of Institutional Legal EMEA with Fidelity Worldwide, Legal Counsel for Mercers Global Investments, and Head of European Legal at Barclays Global Investors.

Nick received a Bachelor of Law from University of Western Australia in 1991, a Masters in Taxation from University of Sydney in 1995, and a Masters in Applied Finance from Macquarie University in 1996.

Tom is a corporate partner and co-head of Linklaters’ newly established Operational Intelligence Group, which focuses on risk, regulation and governance. Tom has significant experience in M&A and equity capital markets transactions in the United States, Europe and South Africa, having acted as the lead U.S. adviser on a number of high profile and complex transactions in recent years. He also provides U.S. corporate law and SEC-reporting advice to a number of the firm’s largest clients. Tom is also chair of the firm’s Corporate Responsibility Committee.

Representative examples include advising:

• An SEC-registered company in the extractive industry on an SEC-investigation and a global compliance review throughout the U.S., Africa, Australia, Asia and Latin America
• A UK plc in connection with the design of its compliance and governance framework
• The United Nations Global Compact on its Global Corporate Counsel Initiative
• AMEC plc in connection with its $3.3 billion offer for Foster Wheeler AG
• Rio Tinto in connection with the $142 billion unsolicited offer by BHP Billiton
• The Royal Bank of Scotland in connection with the €71.1 billion cash and share offer for ABN AMRO
• Gold Fields Limited and Sibanye Gold Limited on the spin-off and NYSE listing of Sibanye
• National Grid in connection with its £3.2 billion rights issue
• Rio Tinto in connection with its $15.2 billion rights issue

Mohammed Khamisa is widely recognised as a Leading Silk in the field of Fraud. His practice encompasses the full range of civil/commercial/white collar fraud and related litigation, frequently advising both corporate and individual professionals/company directors. In addition, he frequently advises clients facing parallel regulatory/disciplinary proceedings, in particular, in the field of financial regulation. Accordingly, Mohammed is a versatile practitioner, whose experience spans a broad spectrum of disciplines and litigation before the criminal and civil courts, as well as regulatory tribunals.

As former Standing Counsel for the Department of Trade and Industry,(BIS) Mohammed has particular expertise in matters involving company and insolvency law, directors’ duties, directors’ disqualification and personal insolvency, all of which often overlap into civil/criminal investigations. His broad range of experience enables him to advise on multi-disciplinary aspects of a case often starting in the civil courts/tribunals but resulting in regulatory and criminal actions.  He is frequently instructed by clients at a very early stage of an investigation to provide robust advice on case management and strategy.

Increasingly he has been asked to advise on aspects of Islamic Sharia Finance Law by financiers and financial institutions keen on developing Sharia compliant banking products.

Mohammed is described by solicitors as a versatile advocate and superb tactician, both in and out of court. His easy, no-nonsense manner commends itself to clients.

Peter joined RSA as Legal Counsel in February 2012 and works in RSA’s Group Corporate Centre in London.

Peter trained as a solicitor at Clifford Chance in London and Paris and joined RSA from Berwin Leighton Paisner where he practised as a corporate lawyer.

At RSA his role focuses on mitigation of legal risks including financial sanctions, money laundering, bribery and corruption, conflicts of interest, data protection and competition issues.  His role involves close cooperation with international businesses across the RSA Group and the central risk and compliance teams.

Peter is married with two children and lives in Surrey.

Peter joined Willis’ FINEX Global (specialists in Financial, Executive and Professional risks) in 2014 to lead the development of the TMT and Cyber Practice. Peter’s background is largely in the Cyber Security, Security and Defence sectors where he led consulting and services businesses: most recently, prior to joining Willis, Peter led the Thales Cyber Security Business. Peter is a leading thinker and influencer in the cyber security sector: he sits on the Defence Cyber Protection Partnership (DCPP) a joint UK Government-Industry body where he leads the development of the standards and measurement framework mandated through contracting in the UK
MoD supply chain from 2015. He is a representative on the UK Cyber Growth Partnership and sits on the TechUK Cyber Management Committee. In addition to the more usual Enterprise Cyber expertise, Peter also has particular expertise in Industrial Control Systems cyber security within the Critical National Infrastructure Environment including the nuclear sector.

Prior to Thales, Peter led sensitive cyber and security activities in South Africa working with the DoD and Treasury and prior to that led Finmeccanica’s Global Battle space Business and the Unisys European Commercial technology services business. Peter’s early career was spent as an officer in the Royal Navy where he served in Nuclear Submarines: he holds a Master’s Degree in IT & Management from Sheffield in the UK and is a Fellow of the Institute of Directors.

Mary O’ Connor is the Global Head of Financial Institutions at the Willis Group, with responsibility for Willis’ world-wide practice in relation to all financial services clients.  Her role encompasses the development of Willis’ strategy and value proposition, and the delivery of innovative risk management and broking services through Willis’ global network. As a leading expert on risk and regulation, Mary has advised clients on all aspects of risk, regulation and financial crime

Mary’s work at Willis on capital market issues addresses the interplay of capital markets and insurance. This includes the role of capital market products such as derivatives in replacing insurance (and vice versa), the role of credit insurance solutions in obtaining capital relief, the use of insurance derivatives and other related products, and alternative finance areas such as crowd-funding.

Mary is a former Executive member of the Board of Directors of Willis Limited, a Non-Executive Director of the Charity Bank, and a member of the world Economic Forum Project in Accelerating Capital markets development, and C5’s European Anti-Corruption Board.

Mary has held senior positions in government in the UK and the US. She joined Willis from the UK Financial Services Authority where she was Group Head of Risk and Compliance.  She also served as Head of Approved Persons there, with responsibility for overseeing regulation of executives and client-facing staff working in financial services in the UK. Mary was also a manager in the Enforcement and Financial Crime Division, where she successfully led high-profile investigations into LIBOR-rigging and obtained record-breaking fines against firms and individuals.

Prior to her time at the FSA, Mary was a partner at a major US law firm in London, and an Assistant US Attorney in Washington, DC, where she reported to the current Attorney General, Eric Holder. As a securities litigator she prosecuted numerous market abuse and insider trading cases.

Mary is a dual-qualified U.S. and U.K. Lawyer.  She speaks regularly on diversity issues and is active in the International Women’s Federation, Senior Women in Insurance and the Association of Professional Working Parents.

Phillip is the lead for Cyber & Content Protection for the Sky group of companies and is the CISO and advisor to the board for Bango, the world’s global leader in mobile payments for app stores. He is also the chair for the UK Intellectual Property online group where members include the UK Intellectual Property Office, National Crime Agency, UK Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit, BPI, FACT, FAST, UKIE for games, Publishers Association, Sky, BT and VM. Phillip is a member of a number of working groups addressing training for law enforcement within the UK and the EU for online
crimes and holds an MSc in International Criminal Justice from the Institute of Criminal Justice studies at Portsmouth University.

Zoe is a qualified Solicitor and Company Secretary with over 16 years broad financial services industry experience gained within a range of businesses from “magic circle” law firm (Linklaters), to innovative start up (Salaam Halal Insurance) to Multinational FTSE 250 group (Hiscox). Prior to joining OneSavings Bank, Zoe was Legal and Compliance Director at Salaam Halal Insurance and has held senior roles in the Lloyds Insurance Market and Hiscox Plc.

Howard has practiced as a solicitor in London for 30 years, for much of the time as a criminal defence specialist (but also with a spell at the Serious Fraud Office as an investigative lawyer). Since 2011 he has represented British whistleblower clients in affiliation with U.S. law firm, Shepherd, Finkelman, Miller & Shah, LLP

Howard’s practice concentrates on representing clients with False Claims Act, whistleblowing and qui tam claims. These cases although lodged in the United States, contain dimensions that are extra-territorial, primarily arising in the UK.