A financial crime risk and compliance specialist dedicated to saving your company time, money and disruption over the medium to long term.
A highly charged forward-thinker not afraid to raise difficult questions and to identify and implement appropriate answers.
An over-the-horizon strategist with a track record of being, often, decades ahead of current thinking.
A frank commentator on legal and regulatory risk and compliance measures and policies.
A ruthless critic of short-termism and poor drafting in law and regulation.
An advocate against buzzwords and acronyms. A firm believer in simplicity.
Possessor of a wide and deep understanding of risk and compliance issues and a remarkable ability to narrow down to urgent and important issues whilst not losing sight of the prime objective of a comprehensive risk and compliance strategy and policies and procedures.
A natural in advisory roles including internal advisory. Also able to bolster specialist requirements for internal audit.
A highly effective communicator: it is my responsibility to ensure that the audience understands exactly what I intend. Clarity is paramount.
With a first career in legal practice (inc. civil and criminal litigation, non-contentious and commercial law), retired from full-time practice to concentrate on financial crime risk and compliance. That's decades of relevant experience available to your organisation.
Excels in identifying points of failure in documented systems and identifying and proposing strategies to respond to issues raised in legislation and regulation.
A writer of academic and professional papers and articles for trade, professional magazines, broadsheet and tabloid newspapers. In addition, many, many interviews across that spectrum. Blogger and BLOG/caster.
Many appearances on national and global tv and radio. Author of e-learning courses since 1998. Author of books since 1996. Speaker at many commercial and government-sponsored conferences, seminars and workshops.
Versed in technology since the 1980s, focused on what the tech does rather than how it does it. Asks tough questions of technologists and designers of x-tech systems.
Able to guide product developers in FinTech and RegTech at all stages of the product cycle.
History
Head, Financial Crime Risk and Compliance
Apr 1994 - Present
Having gone several name changes to reflect trends within the industry, Financial Crime Risk and Compliance is a privately held group of companies with publications, information services, face to face, e- & blended learning, seminars, workshops and Fora in connection with counter (anti) money laundering and anti (counter) funding of future crime including terrorism.
Includes financialcrimeriskandcompliancetraining.com - the 2020 iteration of the e-learning product Quick To Learn More founded 2002. With essentials and advanced courses plus basics for non-financial sector businesses, we now deliver extremely broad education across and up and down the entire sector.
Morris-Cotterill heads the Group he founded in 1994 as a compliance & risk management consultancy following on from extensive experience in litigation, transactional and compliance work in private practice as an English solicitor.
Clients and customers have included banks, insurance companies, securities houses, government departments, regulators, enforcement agencies etc.
Chairman: The Financial Crime Forum
1999 - present
Also The Economic Crime Forum
It is one of life's ironies that Morris-Cotterill does not speak at these Fora which have a very specific format
www.financialcrimeforum.com
Writer - books, articles, papers, training content, manuals
-- May 1994 - Present
I write books. Using decades of relevant experience, I take complicated subjects and make them easy for non-specialists and busy people to understand.
I analyse vast amounts of information and identify patterns and risks and explain them, often many years ahead of them becoming obvious.
Trade based laundering? It didn't have a name when I explained it in 1996. Transaction laundering? Oh, goody, now someone's given a misleading name to a long established practice.
Am I a cynic? Yes.
Why? Because the stuff you read today, or hear from "thought leaders" is what I wrote about as long ago as two decades. That's leading, not adding a buzzword and claiming novelty.
Calling the steps of money laundering "hiding, moving and investing".. that was me.
Telling UK banks that the USA PATRIOT Act would give the USA the Tools (yes, that was deliberate) to fine foreign banks and how and why it would work? Yes, that was me - before the USA PATRIOT Act was even in force - no one listened. It's cost UK banks hundreds of millions of dollars.
Explaining the risks in internet banking and electronic currencies? Yes. In 1996.
Steps to clean up the internet? I wrote about much of that in 1999 and it's still valid, updated in 2015.
An analysis of the techniques that ISIS/Da'esh have used to turn themselves into a global problem and how those same ideas will be used by organised crime gangs? Yes, been there, done that. And the signs of it happening are beginning to show.
In mid 2017, I published my first work of fiction. "Enjoy! The Time Travellers' Guide to Eating Out. Repeatedly. "
I have written for many of the world's major titles - and been quoted in far more. I have appeared on many national and international TV and radio programmes. My papers appear in a range of academic journals.
And I have a blog.
Fill in the Enquiries form for more information.
Founder. Vortex Centrum Ltd, Publishers
Aug 1999 - Present
World Money Laundering Report has been published since 1999
Quick to Learn More was launched in 2002.
Financial Crime Risk and Compliance Training was launched in 2020 and superseded Quick To Learn More as our flagship brand.
Financial Crime Risk and Compliance superseded "The Anti Money Laundering Network" as the name of our management consultancy services in 2020.
HonourPay was launched in 2021.
Financial Crime Broadcasting was launched in 2021
Clarity was launched in 2021
There's more. Visit www.vortexcentrum.com for details.
Contributing Editor Complinet
1999 - Present
Solicitor
Various Jul 1984 - Sep 1999 ยท London, England,
The dates are approximate.
I started work in a solicitor's firm during my school holidays when I was 15. At 16 I made my first appearance in open court. I worked in school and college holidays for most breaks until I finished at the College of Law in Chester. After that, I undertook articles and spent some time working in a variety of firms undertaking the function of locum tenens gaining the widest experience possible. I was admitted as a solicitor in 1984 and soon afterwards formed my own firm. Part of the firm was a typical high-street practice and part was a commercial firm with large, international, clients in financial services and the oil and gas industries, amongst others. I dealt with litigation and with regulatory affairs, including reporting on the effects of new laws.
In 1991, I merged my firm with a firm in Bloomsbury, London which subsequently split - I was with that part that moved into the City of London.
In 1994, the implementing of the Money Laundering Regulations brought together all the knowledge and skills I had gathered over the years and I began to focus on that area.
At this time, before most people thought of it, I began to work from home. We called it "telecommuting" in those days.
I left full time practice in 1996 but continued to provide consultancy and support. I also took on financial crime assignments in-house with e.g. telecoms companies.
I continued doing things before the world was ready by being one of those extremely rare creatures, a solicitor who appeared in open court before the High Court in London, often having to assert my right to do so in the face of both Judges and opposing barristers who simply didn't want solicitors to be there.