Gary Pons

Practice Areas

Gary Pons specialises in financial crime, civil fraud, asset forfeiture, sanctions, confiscation, and money laundering. His cases frequently involve complex international disputes.

Gary has acted in high-profile cases in Costa Rica, where his knowledge of Spanish criminal law allowed him to play an active part in the case.

Career

Current/Recent instructions include:

Asplin v Das UK. An application for a certificate of inadequacy and variation of a restraint order concerning a £5m confiscation order which is the subject of two Court of Appeal judgments.

Netherlands v Baybasin where Gary acts for the receiver in a complex case involving competing confiscation proceedings in England and the Netherlands.

Junior counsel for the SFO in its enforcement of a confiscation order made against Gerald Smith in the sum of c. £40m. The case was described by Foxton J as “a dispute of labyrinthine complexity”.

Acted for the NCA in the recovery of gold weighing 104 kilos, which was found in the cargo section of a plane which had arrived from the Cayman Islands.

Acted for an authorised payment institution that was unable to access its safeguarding accounts holding in excess of £30m.

Represented a Ukrainian lawyer in her successful application to discharge an external restraint order made in relation to criminal proceedings in Ukraine.

Gary Pons is a direct access qualified barrister with a litigation extension to his practising certificate.

Publications

Editor of Mitchell Taylor and Talbot on Confiscation and the Proceeds of Crime.