Michael O’Kane

Peters & Peters
Email mokane@petersandpeters.com
Phone +44 (0)20 7822 7755
Address 15 Fetter Lane, London, EC4A 1BW, United Kingdom

Michael O’Kane is a partner and head of the business crime team at Peters & Peters. He is highly experienced at dealing with the international aspects of business crime, including sanctions.

Michael is listed in Who’s Who Legal as one of the world’s ten most highly regarded investigative lawyers. Described as ‘sensational’ and ‘tremendously effective’, he comes ‘highly recommended’ and ‘few can compete’. His team at Peters & Peters won Sanctions Law Firm of the year (Europe) in the 2015 WorldECR awards.

He regularly advises corporate clients on sanctions related issues, such as global compliance, contractual disputes, criminal risk, and licensing requirements. Recent work includes:

  • A year-long review of the sanctions policies and procedures of a multi-national with operations in over 100 countries. Devised a global sanctions policy allowing the company to comply with Western sanctions regimes while continuing to do business in countries subject to particularly harsh sanctions or trade embargoes.
  • Acting for 121 listed Zimbabwean persons before the EU’s General Court in the largest and most complex challenge of its kind.
  • Representing former Egyptian Housing Minister Ahmed El Maghraby and his wife in an action challenging the legality of an EU asset freeze and brought judicial review proceedings before the Administrative Court challenging the automatic application by UK authorities of the EU regulation freezing their assets.
  • Advising an Education Company on accepting payments from students from sanctioned countries.

Michael was called to the bar in 1992, and prior to joining Peters & Peters was a senior specialist prosecutor at the Crown Prosecution Service Headquarters where he had responsibility for a number of high-profile complex cases.

Michael co-writes the leading blog on sanctions law at www.europeansanctions.com.

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