Ross Dixon

Ross Dixon is a hugely experienced criminal litigator who specialises in representing people caught up in serious financial, white-collar crime and regulatory investigations. Committed, personable and highly skilled, Ross takes a strategic approach to all his cases. He has achieved significant success in some of the UK’s most high-profile white-collar crime and regulatory matters.

Ross represents businesspeople and HNWs – often directors, senior executives and founders – who require legal representation when their companies are under investigation.

He has acted in some of the UK’s most serious and complex fraud, false accounting and bribery and corruption cases. His financial crime practice includes tax investigations and regulatory investigations by professional bodies such as the FCA, the SRA and the FRC.

He has considerable experience of cases that involve parallel investigations in the UK and overseas, including the US, Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East and often works closely with lawyers based in other jurisdictions. His experience includes advising and representing people facing requests for mutual legal assistance or extradition.

Ross has been involved in many of the SFO’s significant and complex investigations. Recent clients include the (acquitted) former MD of Tesco UK and the (acquitted) former CEO of G4S UK, as well as suspects in the SFO’s investigations into Petrofac, Airbus, Amec Foster Wheeler and Chemring Group.

In addition to fraud and bribery and corruption matters, Ross has great expertise in the law governing the proceeds of crime, money laundering and the seizure and confiscation of assets, especially as it relates to complex financial investigations. He gives specialist advice to those having to navigate the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and has served on the Law Society’s Economic Crime Task Force (formerly Money Laundering Task Force) since 2012.

Ross is often instructed to advise on money laundering matters, including by law firms and fellow professionals having to grapple with the complexities that arise in these cases. He is well versed in the issues involved in resisting Unexplained Wealth Orders, Account Freezing Orders and Account Forfeiture Orders.

In his regulatory practice, Ross has expertise and substantial experience advising senior finance executives under investigation by the FRC where allegations of accounting impropriety have arisen. He is regularly instructed by individuals scrutinised by the FCA on market abuse and insider dealing allegations, and his clients include law firm partners facing investigation by the SRA. He also advises individuals facing criminal prosecution – or the prospect of it – in all manner of situations, including the most serious HMRC-related prosecutions.

Alongside his financial crime and regulatory work, Ross has great experience representing HNWs, professionals, businesspeople and their families caught up in general and serious crime cases, whether in police investigations or before the Magistrates’ and Crown Courts. He has played an important role in representing the firm’s clients in the investigation and criminal proceedings that followed the death of Hans Kristian Rausing’s wife; as well as in the firm’s representation of singer celebrity Tulisa Contostavlos and artist David Hockney.

Ross is Chair of Partners at Hickman & Rose. He joined the firm in 1995 and became a partner in 1998.

Senior Vice-Chair of the International Bar Association Criminal Law Committee, a member of The Fraud Lawyers Association committee, and has served on the Law Society’s Economic Crime Task Force (formerly the Money Laundering Task Force) since 2012.