Rebecca is the Head of both the Litigation and Dispute Management team and the Corporate Crime and Financial Services Disputes and Investigations team in the Middle East.
Rebecca has experience in both common and local civil law systems, managing high profile and high value claims in the English, UAE, Bahraini, Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) and Abu Dhabi Global Markets (ADGM) courts. She supports clients on the entire cycle of litigation work including risk advisory work, injunctive relief, litigation, asset tracing and enforcement action. She has also managed numerous complex jurisdictional challenges both in the UAE and across the globe.
Having set up the Corporate Crime and Investigations practice in the Middle East on her arrival in the region in in 2015, she regularly supports clients on the criminal interplay with civil law. She also has extensive experience in leading investigations and dealing with regulators where there have been allegations of non-compliance having conducted a variety of investigations across Jordan, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, England and Japan.
Her compliance work includes the implementation of risk management frameworks, drafting policies and procedures on core risk areas such as ethics, anti-bribery and corruption, anti-money laundering and whistleblowing alongside the delivery of various
training programmes at all levels, to help embed the key risk management messages.
Rebecca continues to lead the way with the implementation of a number of litigation technology products in the Middle East including ES Locate. ES Locate is a document review platform where eDiscovery software is used to efficiently and cost effectively manage all forms of electronic data for our clients giving the ability to search high volumes of data which has been forensically collected and to review manage and tag this data.
Rebecca has a longstanding experience in the financial services sector and spent 16 years conducting contentious regulatory work in the UK prior to arriving in the UAE and has conducted various secondments with financial services clients. These include six months spent with an international bank’s Litigation & Investigations team where she undertook numerous high profile investigations.
She is currently defending a UAE based financial services client in one of the largest disputed insolvency proceedings to be heard in the ADGM Courts, managing both the LCIA arbitration and common law court proceedings running in parallel.
- over the years, Rebecca has contributed to many articles published on the Oath magazine
- Rebecca devises bespoke training for various regulated firms on AML, ABC, conflicts of interest, market abuse and general risk conduct, helping them prepare for supervisory visits and minimize risk
- Rebecca is a regular speaker at financial crime, compliance and thought leadership events in the UAE and regularly contributes to legal publications
- GAR | UAE healthcare group preps for London arbitration, July 2021
- GAR | LCIA clause enforced in UAE healthcare insolvency, May 2021
- awarded a place in the Legal 500’s inaugural Arbitration Powerlist for the Middle East in 2022.
- ranked as a Leading Individual in the UAE Dispute Resolution: Compliance and Investigations Legal Rankings 2021, in the Legal 500
- ranked in Band 2 of the Corporate Investigations United Arab Emirates Legal Rankings in Chambers & Partners 2022
- ranked in Band 4 of the Dispute Resolution United Arab Emirates Legal Rankings in Chambers & Partners 2022
- winner of Regulatory & Investigations Team of the Year in the Middle East Legal Awards 2020
- gained the Higher Rights of Audience qualification in England & Wales
Rebecca is described by Legal 500 as “exceptionally astute”, “reassuringly commercial” and a “noted name for financial services”.
“Rebecca Copley is a very strong lawyer. She is dynamic and knows what she is doing", “She fights hard for her clients." – Chambers & Partners 2022
"Rebecca Copley is technically excellent, adheres to deadlines and suggests innovative but workable solutions. She has a wide variety of experience on a full spectrum of complex financial dispute matters in multiple jurisdictions." – Chambers & Partners 2022
Ranked in Chambers Global 2020, 2021
- Rebecca is a member of the DIFC Court Rules Committee, responsible for drafting the DIFC’s common law procedural rules and protocols and sits on the DIFC’s Court Users Committee.
- LPC (Commendation), Nottingham Law School, UK, 1998
- LL.B Law (2:1), Warwick University, UK, 1996
Insights
Developments in enforcement ease - An update on the reciprocity arrangement...
Insights
Global Tech Week: Investigation and criminal law enforcement trends in 2022...
Insights
The global perspective: Comparing/contrasting SMCR and equivalent regimes (...
Insights
Transparency International report suggests perceived corruption levels rema...