Anthony Riem - PCB Byrne

Our People — Biographies

Anthony Riem

Senior Partner

ariem@pcb-byrne.com

0207 842 1650

07887 732522

Languages:

English

Named as one of the Hot 100 Lawyers for 2021 by The Lawyer, by The Times as one of Britain’s most sought after lawyers and recognised as a leading lawyer in fraud investigation and litigation, asset recovery, banking litigation and commercial litigation, Anthony has deep expertise in handling complex cross-border disputes.

Strategically-minded and a source of astute, commercially-focused advice, Anthony has an established practice acting for banks in multi-million-dollar litigation, often involving freezing orders in several jurisdictions. He has also been instructed in many leading commercial litigation cases over the years, at both first instance and appellate levels.

The directories say:

Anthony is a ‘stellar practitioner’, ranked in the top tier of asset recovery and civil fraud lawyers by Chambers and Partners and the Legal 500 respectively.

Chambers and Partners UK (2022)

Anthony is double top ranked in Civil Fraud and Global Asset Tracing and Recovery’. They say:

‘Tony is a great strategic thinker, you can have the most difficult case and he will still find a very clever way through the problems and will navigate a route for you to follow’, ‘the star of the show’, ‘extremely knowledgeable and sharp’, ‘an expert in the field of fraud and asset recovery’, and ‘understanding of the wider disputes practice and experienced in applying the right global strategy for the projects to be successful.’

‘Anthony is absolutely superb and has very strong fraud expertise.” “He’s very good at client management’

Legal 500 (2022)

Anthony is identified as a Leading Individual for civil fraud, and described as ‘quick witted and shows a well balanced approach to every task’ . He is also recommended for banking litigation and commercial litigation where comments include ‘does his work brilliantly – an enormously experienced litigator with great judgment and wide expertise across the full range of litigation options, as a result of substantial expertise an international civil fraud lawyer’ and ‘great tactician’.

Who’s Who Legal

For a number of years, Anthony has been named as a Global Elite Thought Leader in Asset Recovery. In the 2022 edition, he is described as ‘a supreme strategist’ who has a ‘very commercial attitude to litigation.’

Notable experience

Enforcing the UK's largest-ever divorce award of £453 million across nine jurisdictions.
Acting on a US$200 million dispute between Russia's two largest banks involving the double selling of oil.
Representing a businessman in a series of claims brought by the Libyan Investment Authority alleging hundreds of millions of dollars of investments were procured through bribery.
Establishing the jurisdiction of the Cayman Court to grant freezing orders in support of foreign proceedings, so as to be able to freeze effectively substantial assets held through Cayman vehicles.
Obtaining freezing orders in multiple jurisdictions for various banks including VTB and Bank of Moscow, freezing many hundreds of millions of dollars and in one case obtaining a judgment in excess of US$180 million for deceit where the case against the defendant was almost entirely built on inference.
Enforcing overseas judgments in England where the defendants challenged they could receive fair trials in their home countries.
Obtaining password cracking orders to break passwords on encrypted electronic devices and a disclosure order against Google in respect of Gmail accounts to obtain evidence about assets.
Acted for a claimant company in claims to recover dividends with a value of US$800 million.
Acted on the leading case challenging the jurisdiction of the English Court to grant freezing orders where the defendants were not resident in England and had no assets here.
Acted for a former senior employee of a state-owned aluminium company accused of corruption which is one of the leading cases of when legal privilege can be waived.

Background

Anthony is the English member of Fraudnet, the International Chamber of Commerce’s global network of asset recovery specialists, and a founding member and former Chairman of the Commercial Fraud Lawyers Association. Anthony was both the Managing Partner and Senior Partner at PCB Litigation and is now the Senior Partner at PCB Byrne. In 2021, he was named as one of the 100 Hot Lawyers by the Lawyer Magazine for the deal by which Burford Capital became an equity stakeholder in the firm and provided financing for cases.