Mr Rhys Meggy > Cloth Fair Chambers > London, England > Barrister Profile
Cloth Fair Chambers Offices
39-40 CLOTH FAIR
LONDON
EC1A 7NT
England
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Mr Rhys Meggy
Position
Rhys Meggy’s practice centres on defending allegations of financial criminality or regulatory impropriety on the part of professionals and corporates.
In commercial crime, Rhys’ expertise includes defending allegations of bribery and corruption; large-scale fraud and false accounting; tax evasion; insider dealing; breaches of the general prohibition under FMSA; anticompetitive behaviour; breaches of export controls; insolvency and company law offences; breaches of health and safety and environmental regulations; and money laundering. In addition to FCA, SFO, HMRC, CMA and IS work, Rhys has a particular niche in the defence of executives and corporates pursued by Companies House and the Office of National Statistics.
Rhys also has a well-established practice in financial services regulation, appearing before both the FCA’ s Regulatory Decisions Committee and/or the Upper Tribunal for both individuals and firms in connection with allegations of misconduct or challenges to authorisation decisions.
He has extensive practical experience of the intersection of the civil and criminal jurisdictions where he frequently advises parties to civil fraud litigation as to the criminal implications of the conduct at issue, both in the UK and offshore.
His general criminal work covers the entire spectrum of offences, not least: murder and manslaughter (including corporate); sexual offences; perverting the course of justice; and misconduct in public place. Rhys also has longstanding experience of advising on and/or appearing in: anonymity and/or reporting restriction applications; HMRC CoP8 and CoP9 tax investigations; HMRC compounding negotiations following from export finance breaches; judicial review and/or ‘section 59 CJPA’ proceedings relating to the seizure and retention of evidence; account freezing order (AFO), cash detention and civil forfeiture proceedings; disputes concerning LPP and Independent Counsel reviews.
Prior to coming to the Bar, Rhys worked at a law firm in the BVI, liquidating the feeder funds of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. Later, Rhys was seconded to advise a global investment bank in respect of a wide variety of financial misconduct issues, including dealings with regulators in the context of bribery, money laundering and tax compliance investigations.
Rhys won UK Financial Crime Junior of the Year at the Legal 500 Bar Awards 2022.
Memberships
Called to the Bar – 2009
Lawyer Rankings
London Bar > Business and regulatory crime (including global investigations)
(Leading Juniors)Ranked: Tier 2Rhys Meggy – Cloth Fair Chambers ‘Rhys is a fearless and formidable advocate and has a real presence in court. He has an incredible work ethic and a client will never be in any doubt that all angles of their case have been covered.’
Cloth Fair Chambers maintains a strong position in the market, with the set’s workload including fraud, corporate and financial crime, and members of the set being ‘consistently involved in the high profile and notable cases involving corporations, senior executives and high-profile individuals‘. For example, ‘brilliant, much-in-demand, silk‘ Alison Pople KC is instructed by a high net-worth individual charged with eight counts of cheating the public revenue to the tune of £22m, and in SFO v Balli Group, an SFO prosecution for fraud offences in connection with Balli Group’s steel trading platform, John Kelsey-Fry KC led Rachel Kapila in representing the chairman of the group. Tom Allen KC is instructed to represent the former managing director of an Airbus subsidiary accused of corruption relating to work for carried out for the Saudi national guard. In November 2022, Stuart Biggs joined from Three Raymond Buildings. Rhys Meggy joined from QEB Hollis Whiteman in May 2023. Ben Sundborg joined as head of practice management from 39 Essex Chambers in April 2023.
London Bar > Crime
(Leading Juniors)Ranked: Tier 3London Bar > Fraud: crime
(Leading Juniors)Ranked: Tier 1Rhys Meggy – Cloth Fair Chambers ‘Rhys has everything that you need from a fraud barrister. He is immensely intelligent. He is confident, having successfully defended highly complex matters. He is extremely supportive of his lay and professional clients and is also robust, clear and considered in court.’
Cloth Fair Chambers is a ‘leading set for white-collar defence work’, hosting both silks and juniors ‘at the top of the game’. John Kelsey-Fry KC has recently been involved in several high-profile cases, including for a defendant in the SFO’s case against the Balli Group for alleged fraud offences committed by its steel trading platform. Alison Pople KC, ‘excellent at navigating tricky legal and ethical issues’, has recently represented an entrepreneur in relation to a charge of eight counts of cheating the public revenue by way of VAT fraud. Rhys Meggy brings his considerable experience in complex international fraud cases to chambers from QEB Hollis Whiteman.