Sarah Wallace
“The go to choice for a tough and no nonsense litigator” — Legal 500
Sarah is a leading corporate crime, professional discipline and financial services investigations lawyer with over 20 years’ experience. She represents clients under or at risk of criminal or regulatory investigation or prosecution.
She gives expert legal, personal and practical advice to senior executives and corporates and specialises in FCA, SFO, CMA, CPS, ICO, HMRC, DOJ, SEC, police and professional discipline investigations eg the SRA, ICAEW, IFoA and FRC.
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Sarah represents senior executives and firms through the stressful, uneasy and challenging time when faced with a criminal, regulatory or internal investigation or regulatory problems that can impact on careers, reputation, health, wealth and business performance. Her aim is to protect reputations and extricate a client from their involvement with an investigation or solve the regulatory concerns as quickly as possible.
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Her clients can be a suspect, under or at risk of investigation or prosecution, whistle-blower, witness or victim and cases often have a cross-border element. Sarah advises on internal investigations, responding to information requests, interview advice, self-reporting, regulatory breaches, compliance monitoring, training and M&A due diligence.
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She has extensive experience defending complex FCA civil, criminal and regulatory cases for senior executives and firms. High profile FCA cases include LIBOR, Newton Investment Management, and insider dealing cases eg Neutec Pharma, Operation Tabernula, Operation Saturn, Oce/Mizuho. She helps firms with systems and controls improvement, compliance monitoring, mis-selling, remediation and customer contact exercises.
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The high profile SFO investigations Sarah has been involved in recently include ENRC, GSK, LIBOR (Barclays, Lloyds), BAT, Rolls-Royce, Autonomy, Quindell, Unaoil and overseas bribery matters. Clients are from the financial services, pharmaceutical, energy, engineering, professional services and aerospace sectors.
Sarah is quoted in the FT, Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Evening Standard, New York Times, Bloomberg, Reuters, PA and is an expert commentator for BBC News. She speaks regularly at industry events.
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She is interested in work culture and writes about diversity, inclusion and well-being in workplaces in national press and social media. She has been a 'CityInfluencer' to encourage cultural change in the City, and speaks at events roundtables for employers to share best practice.
Sarah Wallace has expertise across a range of contentious regulatory and financial crime matters. She is especially noted for her handling of FCA investigations. "She is straight on the money, can pick out issues immediately and is not afraid to go in there and deal with the most difficult issues upfront." Financial Services, Chambers 2022
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Sarah Wallace represents individuals in criminal investigations prosecuted by the SFO and FCA, with notable strength in insider trading and rate-fixing cases. Financial Crime, Chambers 2022
“She’s very engaged, very committed to the cases, creative and tries to find the right solution for clients”. Professional Discipline, Chambers 2019
Noted for her technical expertise in fraud and insider dealing investigations. ​
Prior to joining Constantine Law, Sarah was a partner and led the Regulatory & Criminal Investigations Group in a large national law firm.
SENIOR CIVIL SERVANT
Sarah Wallace at Constantine Law was recommended to me by another Barrister. I was a Respondent in a high-profile high value civil case. When I first met her, I was struck by her professionalism and her grasp of the case. Sarah immediately put my mind at rest. Over the course of our relationship, she laid out all my options, and took on board my own suggestions. As a result of her work the Plaintiffs removed my name from the case. I would happily recommend her to anyone.
LEGAL 500, 2019
the go to choice for a tough and no nonsense litigator who will leave no stone unturned in defence of clients
SENIOR EXECUTIVE, PHARMA SECTOR
Sarah Wallace was measured, reassuring, very thorough, highly experienced and highly professional. it was an exemplary service and I can only say positive things. I couldn’t recommend Sarah highly enough.