Practice · 02

Anti-money laundering & white-collar crime.

Prosecution and defence under the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2010 (Act VII of 2010), in which the firm's principal has served as Special Public Prosecutor since 17th August 2017; seizure and freezing proceedings, commercial fraud, and compliance advice to the institutions the Act obliges.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan building in Islamabad
The Honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan

The practice

Both sides of
the same statute.

The firm has prosecuted money laundering for the state and defended it for the accused, and holds that the two duties sharpen each other: the prosecutor who knows how a defence is built pleads the reference more carefully, and the defender who has carried the burden of proof knows precisely where it fails. Since a charge of money laundering depends upon a determined predicate offence, therefore the practice runs through the customs, tax and corruption matters from which the "proceeds of crime" are said to arise.

The chambers' references of money laundering in the Rawalpindi customs court, filed in matters reported by the national press, have concerned sums running to billions of Rupees; the same appointment carried Pakistan's prosecution record before the Financial Action Task Force on-site visit.

The matters in the press

In the courts

  • 2017 · present

    Prosecution

    Special Public Prosecutor under the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2010 since 17th August 2017: references in the customs courts, including the solar panel imports investigation and the gold smuggling references reported by the national press, and the Chaudhry Sugar Mills matter.

  • Defence

    Defence

    Defence of persons and companies charged under the Act of 2010 and the predicate statutes: customs and currency offences, corruption references, bidding fraud and commercial fraud.

  • Assets

    Seizure & freezing

    Currency and asset seizure proceedings, freezing and attachment of property under the Act of 2010, and the recovery and release applications that follow them.

  • High Courts

    Appellate work

    Appeals and writ petitions arising from laundering and predicate proceedings, including the Ayaan Ali currency-smuggling matter for the FBR before the Honourable Islamabad High Court.

Advisory & training

  • Compliance

    Institutional compliance

    Advice to banks, exchange companies and the professions the Act designates on their obligations: the "Suspicious Transaction Report", customer due diligence, and the duties of the "DNFBP" and its "Self-Regulatory Body".

  • FATF

    International standards

    Representation of the Government of Pakistan through FBR and Pakistan Customs before the Financial Action Task Force on-site visit on prosecution regimes under anti-money laundering law.

  • Training

    Judicial & agency training

    Trainings at the Federal Judicial Academy, Islamabad, to District and Additional Sessions Judges, UNODC officials and law enforcement agencies on money laundering, terrorist financing and commercial fraud; Letter of Appreciation of the Director General, FIA, 2nd January 2012.

  • Writing

    The books

    Combating Money Laundering in Pakistan (2011) and the PILDAT comparative study of the region's anti-money laundering legislations (2008), with a weekly article in the firm's journal.

From the journal

Writing from
this practice.

All writing

Instruct the chambers.

Enquiries in anti-money laundering and white-collar matters are answered from Islamabad.

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