Sophie O'Sullivan

Practice Areas

Sophie O'Sullivan's practice focuses on business crime (including investigations); sanctions and export control; civil fraud; asset forfeiture; financial regulation and compliance; H&S; and regulatory & disciplinary proceedings (including international institutions).

Sophie is appointed to the Attorney General’s Panel of Junior Counsel and the SFO’s International POCA panel.

She co-authored the chapter on Economic Sanctions for Smith, Owen, and Bodnar on Asset Recovery (Criminal Confiscation and Civil Recovery), the chapter on the Bribery Act 2010 for the 3rd edition of Lissack and Horlick on Bribery, the leading work on bribery and corruption offences, and the chapters on Sanctions and MBD’s & their debarment systems in the revised edition, due 2025.

Recent work includes:

- Advising significant UK-based private equity investment group on criminal and regulatory risks re financial sanctions compliance on the issue of re-domiciliation.

- Acting in High Court contempt proceedings arising from alleged breaches of >£6m freezing injunctions, preservation orders and financial undertakings. (Jones v Hamilton [2023]).

- Acting in first s.38 SAMLA challenge to a UK sanctions designation in the Administrative Court (Synesis v Secretary of State for FCDA [2023]).

- Acting for corporate trustee of a large employee pension fund for offences under s40(5) of The Pensions Act 1995.

- Advising global investment fund on potential litigation relating to AML risks arising from a corporate client charged and extradited to the US with $20m wire fraud and corporate financial offences.

- Advising international mining company on sanction risks pertaining to prospective commercial contracts with Russia-linked entities.