Our Practice
Operating from our modern and well appointed offices in Lagos and London, our firm is capable of offering a wide range of comprehensive legal and professional services to various businesses, parastatals, government and non-governmental organisations. All our partners possess a rare and distinctive blend of experience of practice in Nigeria, the United Kingdom and before international criminal courts and Tribunals. Their ability to draw on their practical experience and network of contacts in these jurisdictions arguably gives them a distinct advantage over any their contemporaries. Our main areas of practice can be grouped into: Legal Advisory, Dispute Resolution and Client Support.
Our Practice
Charles Anthony LLP is one of a handful of firms in Nigeria authorised by the Solicitors Regulation Authority of England and Wales to advice and/or act in transactions involving the application of the laws of England and Wales.
Our capability and capacity in this regard is based essentially on the skill, experience and multi-jurisdictional qualifications of our partners acquired over decades in both established and emerging fields of law. We also deal with the criminal-law aspects of these matters, other related white-collar crimes and violations of international criminal law. In each of these fields, we seek to offer our clients a wide range of services and high-quality, personalised and creative advice. We combine legal rigour and imagination with solid practical experience and a concern to respond to the needs of our clients efficiently.
Our firms’ activity covers disputes with which our clients are confronted, many of which emanate from the domestic and cross-border transactions they are involved in. Some of our lawyers are admitted to and practice in multiple jurisdictions, whilst others have vast experience in the areas of international and domestic arbitration, high court litigation, mediation, adjudication as well as other ADR techniques. We have always regarded the handling of disputes as an essential complement to our legal advisory activity.
As we seek to meet the challenges of a world in constant evolution, the development of personal relations with our clients is of paramount importance to us. We strive to understand the environment in which our clients operate, the activities they pursue, the profession they practice and the projects they develop.
Areas Of Practice
Practitioners in our private client, wealth, trust, and investment advisory team are able to demonstrate their broad understanding of the principles of private client, wealth, and investment advice, within the context of the current regulatory environment in various offshore jurisdictions. We have acted in some of the largest offshore trust cases, including a heavily contested trust and probate case with assets worth over $500 million, spanning Nigeria, Ghana, the Isle of Man, Cayman Islands, and the United Kingdom. We continue to attract a steady flow of high-value and complex cross-border work that spans multiple jurisdictions. Charles Adeogun-Phillips advises trustees, executors, and beneficiaries on a broad range of disputes and heads the firm’s private client, wealth, and Investment Advisory team. He also advises wealthy individuals, trustees, and fiduciaries on disputes arising from sophisticated offshore trusts and structures, as well as detangling the complex asset protection schemes.
At the centerpiece of our firm is a sophisticated international and business crime practice, with significant international expertise in “white-collar” criminal litigation. The Firm has acted in matters involving corruption; embezzlement and abuse of public office; money laundering and tracing proceeds of fraud; complex corporate fraud, to counterfeiting and other violations of intellectual property rights. The Firm also has experience of dealing with electronic and financial crimes; allegations of insider trading and other violations of investment and securities laws. Some of our partners in this area of specialisation have been instructed as prosecutors or defence counsel in some of highest profile money-laundering and/or corruption cases involving ultra-high-net-worth individuals or public officers before courts in Nigeria and the United Kingdom.
Our ‘white-collar’ and business crime practice includes representing sovereign States, major oil and gas corporations, and ultra-high-net-worth individuals in complex corruption and fraud cases, often with cross-border elements. Our firm represented an ultra-high-net-worth individual charged with money laundering in challenging a $40 million non-conviction based interim asset forfeiture order in favour of a sovereign State. Our Firm has also advised an international investor in a commercial dispute with a sovereign state, which resulted in the repudiation of a multi-billion-dollar infrastructure contract, following allegations of fraud, corruption and misconduct levelled by the said State against some of its public office holders. Our Firm has advised two joint venture partners, including an oil exploration corporation owned by a sovereign State and a multinational exploration oil company, in $1billion fraud claim against the operator of the joint venture in 3 oil producing fields.
Our ‘white-collar’ and business crime practice includes representing sovereign States, major oil and gas corporations, and ultra-high-net-worth individuals in complex corruption and fraud cases, often with cross-border elements. Our firm represented an ultra-high-net-worth individual charged with money laundering in challenging a $40 million non-conviction based interim asset forfeiture order in favour of a sovereign State. Our Firm has also advised an international investor in a commercial dispute with a sovereign state, which resulted in the repudiation of a multi-billion-dollar infrastructure contract, following allegations of fraud, corruption and misconduct levelled by the said State against some of its public office holders. Our Firm has advised two joint venture partners, including an oil exploration corporation owned by a sovereign State and a multinational exploration oil company, in $1billion fraud claim against the operator of the joint venture in 3 oil producing fields.
We have always regarded the handling of disputes as an essential compliment to our legal advisory activity. Charles Anthony’s litigation and dispute resolution practice covers virtually every aspect of civil and commercial litigation. Our litigation and dispute resolution practitioners appear at all levels of state, federal and international courts and possess an enviable success rate. In addition, many of our practitioners are experienced in international arbitration, mediation and other forms of Alternative Dispute Resolution and belong to some of the most prestigious arbitration associations and institutions in the world.
International disputes are increasing dramatically as businesses expand into foreign markets to compete in the global economy. To that end, litigating across national borders is often legally complex and raises novel or unusual challenges with regard to choice-of-law and forum. It requires experience to coordinate and implement an effective litigation strategy. Our Partners have between them, over three decades of experience of practice outside this jurisdiction. Consequently, they have the training and skills necessary to handle the unique dimensions of international litigation and effectively represent clients in cross-border disputes.
All our partners are qualified in England & Wales– and thereby able to advice on English law and/or procedure. They also represent our clients in that jurisdiction. Such clients will benefit from our capacity in this regard on three fronts, firstly they will no longer have to be concerned about instructing foreign lawyers, secondly they can be confident that they will be receiving high level representation in such matters, finally, they will no longer have to remunerate for such work in foreign currency as all fees can be agreed and paid in the local currency – this has the effect of ensuring maximum returns on minimal costs.
At Charles Anthony we have a proven experience in representing Sovereign States seeking to trace, freeze and recover the proceeds of corruption and/or compensation for corrupt acts. We also have experience of providing representation to financial institutions and other clients in debt recovery cases. All three partners at our firm are multi-jurisdictional lawyers.
Such multi-jurisdictional qualifications and experience reinforces our firms’ existing capabilities in tracing and restraining assets derived from the proceeds of corruption and other unlawful acts located in the United Kingdom and other off-shore jurisdictions.
Our partners’ are extremely familiar with the legislative asset recovery regimes in the United Kingdom under the UK Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, and the various reciprocal international anti-money laundering protocols and/or legislation in other parts of Europe, the USA, South Africa and the Middle East. They are therefore uniquely qualified to provide the requisite legal advice, representation and investigative support to our clients, both in Nigeria, as well as in the overseas jurisdictions outlined above.
In particular, we have advised and assisted domestic law enforcement agencies to:
a. Recover misappropriated public funds, bribes and compensation for corruption from dishonest public officials, their companies, trusts, and associates;
b. Instituting claims to recover assets or compensation against third parties which knowingly handle the proceeds of corruption, or assist in the laundering of it.
We have also assisted in training law enforcement agents in Nigeria on mechanisms to recover the proceeds of corruption.
Building on the strong traditions inherited from our parent firm, our labour and employment practitioners represent clients engaged in litigation, before various courts, arbitral and administrative tribunals in matters regarding employment discrimination, employee benefits, wrongful dismissal and other labour related issues. They are also capable of rendering numerous services to clients including advice on a wide range of employment matters including terms and conditions, termination, transfers of businesses, employee share ownership schemes, pensions and other retirement benefits.
Our lawyers can also represent employers in all facets of union and management relations, including contract negotiations and administration. They can also advice clients on personnel and business decisions, including compensation systems, employee benefit plans, the legal implications of staff retrenchment and mergers and acquisitions. We have specialists providing advice and services on immigration and nationality matters, particularly with regard to entry permits for expatriate workers.
At Charles Anthony LLP we are particularly experienced in this relatively novel and niche area of international legal practice. Our firm has significant experience in dealing with matters involving serious violations of international criminal and humanitarian law including genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, international piracy and terrorism.
Our founding partner has practiced for over two decades in the international criminal and humanitarian law fields and belongs to a select and highly revered circle of leading and internationally recognised legal experts in this field. Having had over 20 years’ experience of leading high profile international criminal prosecutions and investigations before international courts and tribunals including, the United Nations War Crimes Tribunals for Rwanda and/or the Former Yugoslavia where he successfully led teams of international prosecutors in 12 separate international war crimes trials, and at the African Court on Human and People’s Rights, where he successfully challenged the constitutional prohibition against independent candidature for election into public office, as a violation of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights.
His advisory practice includes providing specialist advice to the Military Defence Headquarters in Nigeria, following Amnesty Internationals’ allegations of extra judicial killings allegedly committed by members of the Nigerian Armed Forces against members the terrorist group Boko Haram, and to the Nigerian Government on ICC related transitional justice issues.