CFATF conference will see participation of legal luminaries – versed in asset recovery, terrorist financing

DPI, Guyana, Wednesday, May 02, 2018

His Honour Judge Michael Hopmeier will be representing the Government of the United Kingdom (UK) at the upcoming Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) Judges and Prosecutors Conference to be hosted at the Pegasus Hotel.

HH Judge Michael Hopmeier was called to the Bar in July 1974. He is a Circuit Judge at Southwark Crown Court, England mainly on fraud cases.  He was appointed Visiting Professor at City University, London in March 2014.

The legal luminary has been an advocacy trainer for some years and regularly marshalls students of the Inn. He lectures at the Judicial College and also abroad at international seminars on Confiscation and fighting economic crime and is a Diversity and Community Relations Judge in Surrey and a European Judicial Training Network (EJTN) Regional Coordinator for the South East.

He serves on the committees of the Wadham College Law Society and the European Criminal Lawyers Association (ECLA UK). The Judge is also Co-Editor of the 4th Edition of Millington and Sutherland Williams on “the Proceeds of Crime” published by OUP in September 2013. The 5th Edition was published in January 2018. He is the author of a “Guide to Restraint and Confiscation” published by the Judicial College, UK, in February 2017.

Before his full-time appointment, the Judge had been a barrister for over 30 years acting for the Prosecution and the Defence, specialising latterly in economic crime-related cases. He also advised and acted in civil commercial cases, including drafting commercial agreements for financial institutions.

Other participants at the conference will include Director of Public Prosecution, Antigua and Barbuda, Anthony Armstrong; Puisne Judge, Supreme Court, Bermuda, Hon. Charles Etta Simmons; and Senior Legal Adviser, Regional Security System Asset Recovery Unit, Eastern Caribbean RSS Asset Recovery Unit, Giovanni James.

 

By: Stacy Carmichael.

 

Editor’s Note:

CFATF is an observer member of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) an intergovernmental organisation that designs and promotes policies and standards to combat financial crime.

RSS Asset Recovery Unit – Caribbean – The RSS criminal assets recovery programme is an innovative approach to tackling serious organised crime in the Caribbean common law jurisdictions, through partnership and the robust application of proceeds of crime and money laundering legislation. It commenced in November 2015.