Saima Hanif KC

Practice Areas

Financial Services, Banking & Finance, Professional Discipline, Sanctions, Administrative Law.

Saima has a commercial law practice with an expertise in contentious FS. She has acted in various high-profile disputes e.g. the Forex manipulation scandal, Keydata and the 1MDB investigation in Singapore. She is currently sole counsel in two major FCA investigations, three PRA investigations and the widely publicised SKAT ‘dividend arbitrage’ litigation. She appears regularly in the Upper Tribunal (Tinney v FCA [2019] achieving an unprecedented outcome, Roberts v FCA where she acted for the former-CEO of Catalyst, Khan v FCA, Karan v FSA & UBS) and has extensive cross-border experience, acting for clients in Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai (Siddique v DFSA, Rollet v DFSA) the Isle of Man and Guernsey. She has represented the claimant in two rare successful judicial reviews of the regulator (Ford v FSA, T & I v FCA) and the claimant in a landmark FOS judicial review (Chancery v FOS) and a Court of Appeal challenge to the jurisdiction decision of the FOS (Assurant v FOS). She also has an expertise in sanctions law, especially in the FS industry.

Career

Called to Lincoln’s Inn in 2002, took silk in 2021, listed as one of the Lawyer’s Hot 100 in 2021, appointed to the role of Senior Decision Maker in Guernsey in 2023. Previous Secondments include: the FSA; Clifford Chance; FMLC, Bank of England; FCA (GCD).

Professional Memberships

COMBAR, FSLA, Member of the JUSTICE Council.

Publications

co-editor of Disciplinary & Regulatory Proceedings (Jordans) and Phipson on Evidence (Sweet & Maxwell)