Phil Espin

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Phil is an expert in the field of direct tax risk, high level income and corporation tax investigations and disputes of all kinds involving multinational companies and entrepreneurs. He has over 28 years of experience with HMRC, Ernst & Young and Grant Thornton. Phil benefits from his personal knowledge of the tax inspector’s mind-set as well as the tax planners. This coupled with his practical experience of tax risks faced by businesses and individuals allows him to give clients a deeply individual insight into their tax risk exposures and how to minimise them.

During a twelve year career with HMRC Phil spent over 6 years with their Special Compliance Office as a successful investigator involving cross border tax evasion and tax avoidance. From his experience, Phil is technically adept in income and Corporation tax matters and developed particular expertise in tackling complex offshore trusts, company residents, and branch and agency issues.

In 1996 Phil joined Ernst & Young. He led the tax investigations team in the North of England before moving to Tax Risk Management (TRM) in London where he was involved in the defence of some of the largest multi-national civil investigations of fraud causes that HMRC launched in the early 2000’s. This work took him to Europe, North and South America.

Gurm Sanger

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Gurm is a highly experienced litigator with over 10 years court room experience acting for clients from all walks of life both domestic and cross border. His experience ranges from the County Court up to and including the Supreme Court in civil jurisdictions.

Whilst being a very tenacious litigator he understands commercial needs are an overriding factor for clients, thus he has been very successful in negotiating settlements in an innovative manner, - extricating clients from contentious positions to reach effective conclusions. Clients praise his practical application of the law to secure their best interests. He is a commercially friendly, strategic thinker providing a personal touch to sensitive and complex matters.

He has been involved in high level group litigation and cases attracting national and media interest.

Gurm is a familiar sight at Criminal Courts across the country, highly regarded by peers and clients alike.

Nicholas Doran

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Nicky worked in the City of London and New York as a futures and options trader before retraining to be a lawyer.

Nicky as a senior solicitor at CGS is a specialist in Serious Fraud, Money Laundering and large scale drug conspiracies having acted for a number of individuals where faced with the most serious offences. His civil experience extends to Corporate Crime, Civil Tax Investigations and Assessments, and Civil Assets Recovery proceedings.

His expertise also includes defending clients facing claims under Confiscation Proceedings for benefiting from the proceeds of crime and has achieved a very good success rate at the Court of Appeal.

He also advises firms on anti-money laundering practices in UK and the UAE and has been instructed to commission reports on such areas.

Sample of Cases:

R v T

Multi-Jurisdictional money laundering allegation which resulted in acquittal and return to client of over £1m in restrained assets.

R v SK

Multi-Jurisdictional money laundering alleged to be in excess of £64m. Client acquitted on all charges.