Louise Abbott

Practice Areas

Louise is a disputes solicitor with a distinct specialism in domestic and international civil fraud, cryptocurrency, and asset recovery. The cases she advises on often involve tracing and recovering the proceeds of fraud on behalf of claimants. She has particular experience acting on cases where there are criminal, restraint, or regulatory proceedings running in parallel.

Louise is also an expert in company shareholder disputes, corporate and financial litigation, fraudulent litigation, misrepresentation, bribery and corruption. She supports clients caught up in collective investment schemes, Ponzi and advance fee fraud schemes, employee frauds, insolvency litigation, breach of trust, and directors’ duties.

Many of the cases Louise works on are multi-jurisdictional and can be high-profile or sensitive investigations.

Louise’s clients are leading global businesses, professional bodies and international organisations, as well as ultra-high-net-worth individuals and entrepreneurial businesses.

Career

Louise qualified as a solicitor in 2003. Prior to joining Keystone Law in 2020, she was Head of Commercial Litigation and Civil Fraud at Howard Kennedy.

Professional Memberships

Member of the Commercial Fraud Lawyers Association

Founder of the LB Business Network

Work Highlights

Acted for a shareholder in a cryptocurrency business dealing with cross-border disputes and allegations of large-scale fraud.

Taken on a number of UK-based, European and global clients who have lost funds as part of the FTX collapse and is the go-to English solicitor for guidance on all aspects of crypto currency fraud. Advised investors on their legal action, reviewing which legal FTX entity their claim is against, and whether they need to file in the US bankruptcy, or whether they have a claim in fraud against the corporate entity and/or directors of the business. This case is thought to be the globe’s biggest fraud; it has been said to be more serious, and a bigger, far wider fraud than the Maddoff Ponzi Scheme case. It is the biggest financial scandal of all time and unprecedented.

Leading solicitor for crypto litigation (recently voted in the top 50 city crypto professionals awards). She has acted for many clients (individuals, corporates, funds) in tracing and recovering stolen crypto assets, including securing freezing injunctions and disclosure orders against many crypto exchanges across the globe. Some of Louise’s cases are leading cases in this sector. Her wider teams of experts and counsel includes the world’s most renown.

Won a claim against a Cypriot Company for fraudulent cryptocurrency trading. The company purported to have licence with the FSA to conduct brokerage services in the UK. In actual fact, the money was fraudulently invested onto the Blockchain.

Acted as a negotiator between the client and crypto exchange to secure client funds. This was due to a breach of their duties as a trustee.

Advised a new crypto business on the sale of its token and whether they are exposing themselves to a litigation risk, through whether the company needs to be FCA regulated and what this means, whether the business model and tokens fall within the regulatory regime, whether the tokens offered constitute unregulated tokens or e-money tokens, and whether the offering and issuing of coins/tokens falls within the recent White Paper review.

Louise has shared her expertise on crypto fraud and the legal process to recovery of crypto assets through TV news pieces and documentaries including BBC, CoinDesk, Sky News, Fox News, Fox News and CNBC. In addition, Louise has written pieces for The Financial Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Times, Metro and legal publications such as The Verdict. Further to this, Louise has delivered training sessions for British Police Forces to detail the process of civil recovery of crypto assets.

Instructed to investigate and pursue a claim for £1,350,000 in stolen crypto funds for a client based in the USA, and successfully recovered a significant proportion of the stolen funds, working with US Law Enforcement to recover the balance.

Instructed by a client to recover stolen crypto funds with a total value of £6.5m. Judgment has been obtained through Court, working with overseas law enforcement in both UAE and Hong Kong and China to enforce these.