Sanctions Enforcement - risks, penalties and prosecutions: an international perspective

Aziz Rahman is founder and managing partner at Rahman Ravelli, a market-leading commercial litigation, financial crime and cross-border investigations practice.

He advises corporates and senior business and world figures on heavyweight cross-border commercial disputes, high-value asset recovery proceedings, and top-level international arbitration cases involving corporate wrongdoing.

Aziz has gained a reputation as a solicitor who identifies emerging international issues as soon as they arise; playing a significant role in many cases relating to matters such as Ponzi fraud, Libor, Forex, Cum-Ex, sanctions and cryptocurrency.

Known for his expertise in serious and corporate fraud, complex crime, sanctions, bribery and corruption and compliance and regulatory matters,  his workload includes the most notable global corruption investigations, high-value cross-border frauds and major sanctions proceedings.

As a pioneer in civil recovery cases brought under Part 5 of the Proceeds of Crime Act, his experience has helped shape the law. He was the first to take such a case to the Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights to protect clients’ assets.

National and international legal guides consistently rank Aziz among the elite in his field. The Legal 500 has called him a “real genius”, “a Rolls-Royce performer’’ and “a powerhouse figure’’. The Chambers UK Guide has said he is “a brilliant lawyer…phenomenally committed to his clients”.

Aziz hosts Rahman Ravelli’s annual corporate crime conference and provides expert analysis chapters for legal guide books on business crime, corporate investigations and sanctions.

Angelika is a dual-qualified Austrian counsel and English solicitor. She is a specialist in international, high-level economic crime investigations and large-scale commercial disputes.

As a multilingual lawyer, she has widely-recognised expertise in representing corporates and conglomerates in major projects and legal matters across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and United States.

Her comprehensive experience and thorough understanding of all aspects of white-collar crime have led to her successfully representing corporations in many notable multijurisdictional investigations and in some of the most complex commercial litigation. Her caseload has seen her advise clients ranging from international banks through to aerospace, steel, security and defence companies on matters involving bribery and corruption, fraud and other high-stakes, cross-border issues.

Angelika advises corporates on regulatory and compliance matters. She conducts internal investigations for clients to help them identify wrongdoing and then proposes the most appropriate course of action. She also assesses weaknesses in compliance programmes and devises new, strengthened programmes that meet the demands of clients’ multijurisdictional activities.

Angelika’s ability to work in many parts of the world and her network of international counterparts mean she is regularly sought by clients from around the globe to manage offensive asset tracing and recovery litigation. She also works in Rahman Ravelli’s highly-regarded cryptocurrency team.

Her work on cases involving environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues has seen her become one of the lawyers at the forefront of this developing area. She coordinates work for international conglomerates in this field; advising them on regulatory matters, producing staff training and compliance programmes and ensuring their worldwide activities are legally compliant. Angelika also supports NGO’s on issues such as human rights violations, war crime victims and modern slavery.

As part of Rahman Ravelli’s international sanctions team, Angelika assesses the potential impact of all relevant laws and export controls. She keeps up to speed with the rapidly-evolving rules and regulations to ensure clients adopt the correct approach and do not face the prospect of prosecution or financial penalty. Much of her sanctions practice is particularly focused on enforcement activities and the freezing and seizure of assets.

Angelika has been counsel for more than a decade at Austria’s top law firm and speaks English, German, Spanish and Arabic; which is an asset in many international cases.

Jago Russell has a Masters Degree in Law (LLM) from King’s College London and a degree in English Literature from Jesus College, Oxford. Before moving into criminal justice and human rights, he trained and qualified as a solicitor at Slaughter and May, specialising in tax. Jago deals with criminal and regulatory matters, including business crime, extradition, corruption, mutual legal assistance, sanctions and financial crime.

Criminal justice and human rights expertise

Between 2008 and 2021, Jago was the Chief Executive of Fair Trials, where he led the transformation of the charity into a specialist advocacy organisation working globally to advance the right to a fair trial in criminal cases. Under his leadership, Fair Trials secured legal and policy reforms, including new EU-wide protections for defence right rights (including police station access to a lawyer) and reforms to INTERPOL (including new safeguards to protect refugees from INTERPOL Red Notices).

Jago has been interviewed or quoted frequently in mainstream media outlets worldwide, including the BBC, New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, Times, ABC and Le Monde. He has also appeared on podcasts, including the Lawfare Blog, and lectured at numerous high-profile events. Jago has given evidence on a range of criminal justice topics to the UK Parliament’s Home Affairs, Justice and Human Rights Select Committees and gave expert evidence to the UK Government’s Extradition Review. Jago has also presented to the European Parliament, United Nations’ Committee Against Torture and Council of Europe’s, Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights. He worked closely with INTERPOL’s General Secretariat and the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s files on the development of improved oversight and redress mechanisms.

Jago has an extensive global network of criminal justice and human rights experts. He led the development of the EU-wide network of defence lawyers, NGOs and academics - LEAP (the Legal Experts Advisory Panel). For over a decade, Jago has been consulted on complex cross-border criminal matters, helping to identify trusted lawyers in countries across the globe and to develop strategies that address not only the legal but also the diplomatic, political and media implications of political and high-profile cases.

Peter Caldwell specialises in cases of financial misconduct and extradition.

He advises and represents individuals and businesses in international investigations of bribery, money laundering and sanctions compliance.  Peter is head of Doughty Street International’s Sanctions Team.

Peter is ranked by Legal 500 and Chambers UK as a leading barrister, (Band 1), in international crime and extradition and criminal fraud.

Amy Jeffress co-chairs the firm's White Collar Defense & Investigations practice. Ms. Jeffress represents clients in criminal defense, national security, and compliance matters. She conducts internal investigations and advises companies and individuals on export enforcement, FCPA, classified information, the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), and mutual legal assistance and other international law enforcement issues, including extradition and INTERPOL notices.

Before joining the firm, Ms. Jeffress served as the Justice Department Attaché to the US Embassy in London, where she coordinated cooperation between US and UK authorities on criminal matters. She previously served as Counselor to the Attorney General, advising the Attorney General and senior Department leadership and interfacing regularly with the White House and National Security Council, the intelligence community, and other agencies on national security investigations and prosecutions and international matters.

Ms. Jeffress tried more than 40 cases during her 13 years as a federal prosecutor with the US Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia. She served as Chief of the National Security Section, conducting and supervising investigations and prosecutions of international and domestic terrorism, espionage, export control violations, and other crimes related to national security.