Financial services spotlight – Daniel Irving 

Dan Irving is a Barrister and a Legal Director at Birketts. Dan is Head of Public Inquiries, and is a member of the financial services sector team. We spoke to Dan about his role at Birketts, leading on white-collar investigations and financial services contentious work. 

I was called to the bar in 2007 and joined Blackfriars Chambers, a predominantly criminal set, in London, completing pupillage before being taken on as a tenant. I spent more than 11 years in chambers doing a mix of general and white-collar crime and regulatory work and was instructed by the SFO as junior counsel in the first major corporate conviction under the Bribery Act 2010. The case related to an alleged “Ponzi scheme” involving a company that had promoted biofuel investment products linked to tree plantations in South-East Asia. Investments of tens of millions of pounds, predominantly consisting of pension savings, were obtained on the basis of fraudulent representations as to the state of the plantations and the commercial viability of the venture. The total value of the fraud was £23 million. 

In 2019 I joined Birketts, where I lead on white-collar investigations and financial services contentious work. I advise on corporate, financial and regulatory investigations and prosecutions and represent individual and corporate clients in POCA proceedings, FCA enforcement action, and HMRC and SFO investigations. My practice covers the full breadth of financial regulatory work, including international financial sanctions. 

I have recently successfully resisted a €4 million civil forfeiture application on behalf of a corporate client in an international money laundering investigation and Account Freezing Order under the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) 2006.  

Last month I appeared in court to resist an application by the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit (ERSOU) for a POCA Account Freezing Order on behalf of a client residing in Mexico. I successfully argued that the application failed to demonstrate reasonable grounds to suspect that the funds within the account were obtained through unlawful conduct of a sufficiently particularised kind to amount to recoverable property. 

Other recent work includes advising on an FCA insider dealing investigation, advising in relation to FCA enforcement action against an FX trading platform, and advising multiple corporate clients on the applicability of the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019. 

I deliver training to general counsels, heads of legal and at board level, on bribery and facilitation of tax evasion prevention obligations and, most recently, on the new corporate offence of failing to prevent fraud under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023. I also advise on the full range of corporate criminal offences and corporate policies to ensure compliance.