London image

London

Founded in 2012, Signature Litigation has grown into one of London’s pre-eminent specialist dispute resolution practices. From the outset, we set out to do things differently: a conflict-free, disputes-only platform designed to give clients the undivided focus and strategic agility that complex, high-stakes matters demand.

FIND OUT MORE
Gibraltar image

Gibraltar

Established in 2017, Signature Litigation's Gibraltar office was founded to address growing demand for specialist expertise in commercial litigation and private wealth disputes on the Rock.

FIND OUT MORE
Paris image

Paris

Signature Litigation AARPI houses one of France’s most enviable product liability practices, with the team also handling commercial and corporate litigation, insurance and reinsurance, toxic tort and ESG, civil fraud and asset tracing, international arbitration, administrative and public law.

FIND OUT MORE
Frankfurt image

Frankfurt

Frankfurt has emerged as one of Europe's foremost financial and commercial centres and, increasingly, as a bridge between European and Asian markets. With that growth comes an increasing demand for sophisticated dispute resolution. Signature Litigation established its Frankfurt office to meet this need, bringing our conflict-free, disputes-only platform to the German market.

FIND OUT MORE

COVID-19 Slows Pace Of Existing UK Investigations – Abdulali Jiwaji

20 April 2020

"The coronavirus has begun to infect the ongoing case work of U.K. enforcement agencies facing constraints imposed by the countrywide lockdown and social distancing measures that are hampering their ability to push forward substantive investigations already on their books.

The government and law enforcement agencies have been very vocal about their unwillingness to let coronavirus-related fraud slide. And there are already instances where pre-existing investigations have been halted and of other activities being suspended to better focus their efforts in response to the pandemic...

Attorneys have also noticed a slowdown in investigatory work by the Financial Conduct Authority, the U.K.’s financial watchdog, which has been focused on the operational resilience of the financial sector and the protective measures firms have in place.

There is a sense that the FCA is allowing companies “breathing space” during the crisis while there is “firefighting to be done” in response to the impact of the virus on financial institutions, according to Abdulali Jiwaji, a partner at boutique law firm Signature Litigation LLP.

“This has to be the focus, rather than demanding firms hand over a whole swathe of documents electronically," he said. "In the short term I think there is room for more flexibility."

“If a business is being investigated, the FCA isn’t going to gain much more credit by putting it under more pressure through heavy document requests,” Jiwaji added. “It is different from the position of parties in litigation. There is no strategic or tactical advantage to be gained by the FCA in a regulatory process.”"