Search for:
Author

Sunny Mann

Browsing
Sunny Mann is a Partner in Baker McKenzie's London office and co-leads the UK Compliance and Investigations Practice, as well as the UK International Commercial and Trade Practice. Both these practices are ranked Tier 1 by Legal 500 UK. He has also worked in our Firm's Washington DC, New York and Sydney offices. Sunny also advises many clients on risk matters in India. He advises clients (including numerous FTSE 100 and Fortune 100 businesses) on compliance and investigations with respect to export controls, trade sanctions and anti-bribery rules. The Legal 500 ranked Sunny as a “Leading Practitioner", and as "excellent", with a ‘calm’ and "very practical" approach. The India Business Law Journal also noted that Sunny is "excellent and has deep experience in India". He is a Visiting Professor at the College of Europe, the leading institute for post-graduate European studies, where he teaches a course on Corporate Compliance.

In December 2022, the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution which introduced a standardized humanitarian exemption across UN regimes according to which activities necessary for humanitarian assistance and other activities that support basic human needs are exempt from sanctions in the form of asset freezes imposed by the Security Council or by its Sanctions Committees. All UN sanctions regimes except the Afghanistan regulations will now include a standardized humanitarian exception to the asset freeze provisions.

On 26 January 2023 HM Revenue & Customs announced that, as of 1 January 2023, it has nine live Corporate Criminal Offenses investigations for the failure to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion, with a further 26 investigation opportunities under review. These live and potential investigations cover 11 different business sectors including software providers, labor provision, transport, accountancy and legal services.

The European Commission has put forward a proposal to harmonize criminal offences and penalties for the violation of EU sanctions. The proposal follows a decision by the Council which identified the violation of EU sanctions as an EU crime and sets out common EU rules which will make it easier to investigate, prosecute and punish violations of EU sanctions in all Member States alike.

The EU Council has unanimously decided to add the violation of restrictive measures to the list of ‘EU crimes’. Currently Member States have different definitions of what constitutes a violation of EU sanctions and what penalties should be applied in the event of a violation. In a related development, the Justice ministers of France and Germany have jointly published an article which argues that the European Public Prosecutor’s Office should be given the competence to prosecute and punish violations of EU sanctions.