Expert Witness and Financial Crime Forensics

Our Expert Witness and Financial Crime Forensics, covering both civil and criminal cases as well as internal matters of mediation and arbitration, are provided by senior consultant and company director Salam Alaswad.

Acting as an industry advocate and expert demands comprehensive and practical industry knowledge, and the ability to apply it with the utmost integrity to ensure a court or other judiciary system receives a clear and independent expert opinion.

Mr Alaswad holds a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in financial regulations and compliance. He has over 20 years of senior management experience, including multinational experience in the City of London and overseas, in all areas of Contract for Differences (CFD) and Forex (FX) trading. This extends to significant practical knowledge in Know Your Client (KYC) and Customer Due Diligence (CDD) of clients based all over the world, international multichannel money transfers, various risk management techniques, and corporate governance for complex groups of companies based internationally. This has helped to build his great sense for potential financial crimes and other illegal activities in the world of money and investment. He’s currently a compliance director and Money Laundering Reporting Officer (MLRO) for two London-based investment firms

Mr Alaswad holds authorised Licensed Access by the Bar Standards Board (BSB) to instruct barristers directly, on behalf of his clients, for advice and for representation in all courts and tribunals in England and Wales, and for arbitration, adjudication, and mediation.

The duty of an expert witness

The duty of an expert witness is to help the court to achieve its overriding objective by giving an opinion which is objective and unbiased, in relation to matters within their expertise. This is a duty that is owed to the court and overrides any obligation to the party from whom the expert is receiving instructions.

Expert evidence is admissible to furnish the court with information which is likely to be outside the experience and the knowledge of a judge or jury. In criminal cases, experts can be of great assistance to magistrates and juries in aiding them to determine the issues in a case, including the guilt or innocence of an accused.

Qualifications

LL.M, PGDip, B.Sc.

Areas of expertise

• Contract for Differences (CFD)
• Forex (FX)
• Spread betting
• Retail investment products
• Financial derivatives
• Fraud and financial crime
• Boiler room, multilevel marketing, pyramid selling, Ponzi schemes
• Anti-Money Laundering (AML) arrangements and cross-border fraud
• Suspicious bank transfers involving onshore, offshore, and shell companies
• Hedging techniques and risk management strategies
• Poor execution and manipulation of the market bid/ask prices
• Misselling of complex financial products: Forex, CFDs, and other financial derivatives

Training undertaken relevant to the expert witness services

• Criminal Experts Law and Procedure- Bond Solon
• Excellence in Expert Witness report writing – Bond Solon
• Courtroom Skills for Expert Witness – Bond Solon
• Civil Law and Procedure – Bond Solon
• Cross-examination – Bond Solon

Fees

Initial discussions and a preliminary high-level assessment of the case are free of charge, regardless of how long this takes.

Mr Alaswad’s standard hourly rate is £350 + VAT for preparing an expert witness report and £450 + VAT per hour for court attendance. The instructing party will be furnished with detailed terms of business with estimated costs beforehand.

Mr Alaswad accepts cases funded by the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) and due to the uniqueness of his expertise in some cases, the LAA has approved a special hourly rate for him which is higher than any other published rates.

Contact details

Solicitors, barristers, and other members of the judiciary system in the UK or globally are invited to get in touch directly with Salam Alaswad to discuss his Expert Witness services by emailing him on salam.alaswad@fxandcfd.com or by completing the REQUEST FOR SERVICE form.