Bristol law firm TLT hires economic crime specialist to lead economic crime compliance team

Bristol-headquartered law firm TLT has appointed economic crime and compliance specialist Ben Cooper as a partner, heading up its national economic crime compliance team and working closely with the firm’s financial services regulatory, investigations and disputes practice.

Ben’s experience working in-house at a major bank, as well as his consultancy experience, will help further bolster the level of support TLT offers to financial services firms and corporates.

Ben (left) recently left HSBC, where he moved in 2014 and held a number of senior roles including global head of financial crime (functions) and global head of anti-bribery and corruption and was responsible for implementing and operating global economic crime compliance programmes.

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Ben trained and qualified at KLegal and has worked for the Asset Recovery Agency and Serious Organised Crime Agency (now the National Crime Agency) – so he is uniquely placed to advise clients on handling enquiries and investigations from law enforcement agencies.

Ben has over 20 years’ experience advising governments, financial institutions, and corporates on all aspects of economic crime. This includes advising on asset tracing, bribery and corruption, complex investigations, corporate ethics, criminal proceedings, fraud, money laundering, sanctions, tax evasion and terrorist proliferation financing.

Andrew Lyon (right), head of financial services at TLT said: “We’re very excited to be welcoming Ben to TLT. Ben is a widely respected economic crime subject matter expert with a wide variety of experience advising public sector organisations, banks and private companies.

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"With a number of key regulatory change programmes and statutory amendments in play at the moment in the Financial Services sector, Ben’s regulatory focus on economic crime and operational resilience will be an invaluable addition to our client offering.”

Ben said: “I’m delighted to be joining TLT during an exciting period of growth for the firm. With digitalisation, enhanced regulations and more scrutiny than ever before being place on financial services firms and corporates, clients need to be completely up to speed with the fast-evolving landscape of economic crime compliance.

"I look forward to working closely with the rest of the team to provide in-depth expert advice to help these firms meet their individual needs and requirements and prepare them for the next challenges ahead.”