Financial Crime & Sanctions Analyst

Location

Manchester or London

Role summary

The Financial Crime and Sanctions Analyst is a junior-level, second-line role in the Financial Crime and Sanctions (FCS) Team, part of the firm's Legal Department. The role supports the day-to-day implementation of the firm's financial crime and sanctions controls, with a particular focus on client due diligence and reverifications, ongoing monitoring of clients and matters, sanctions monitoring, and gifts and hospitality, as well as support for the firm's remediation project.

You will be at the forefront of compliance in a fast-paced, global environment and will have the opportunity to work on challenging and engaging matters. The focus of this role will be analysing the financial crime, sanctions and reputational risks of existing clients, identifying and gathering client due diligence materials, and escalating key issues to more senior members of the FCS Team.

The role will also involve supporting the FCS Team with quality control (including recording data and analysing trends), regulatory reporting, internal and regulatory audits, and other risk management and compliance projects, such as the implementation of new systems and tools.

The Freshfields Global Centre provides both business and legal services to the firm. Our services are delivered in a way which supports the global nature of our firm and our clients, enables our fee earners to deliver exceptional service to our clients and to do that in a way which is efficient and effective.

Function Overview: Legal Department

This department, made up of both qualified lawyers and non-lawyers, exists to manage the firm's risk exposure and to provide advice to the partners on a range of legal and compliance issues. The Financial Crime and Sanctions Analyst will be a member of the global Financial Crime and Sanctions (FCS) Team in the Legal Department. The FCS Team provides advice to the firm on compliance with financial crime and sanctions legislation and gives guidance on reputational risk matters.

Key responsibilities and deliverables

1) Client reverifications and backlog reduction (AML compliance)

• Facilitating the ongoing monitoring process in coordination with partners and fee earners, particularly in the collection and analysis of due diligence material and records for client reverification purposes.
• Driving down the existing client reverification backlog by working through outstanding reverifications in line with agreed priorities and timescales, and tracking and reporting progress to the FCS Team.

2) Ongoing monitoring of clients and matters (AML compliance)

• Providing support and assistance to the FCS Team principally on client due diligence matters.

• Reviewing records, conducting research, screening for PEPs, sanctions, and adverse media, and reputational risk analysis for existing clients with a view to keeping documentation and information for client risk assessments up-to-date and to agreed standards appropriate for review by internal and external stakeholders such as internal audit and regulators.

• Supporting the ongoing monitoring of high-risk clients and matters in coordination with partners and fee earners, including checking that enhanced due diligence and clearance conditions have been applied and documented, and escalating any new or increased financial crime risks to more senior members of the FCS Team.

3) Sanctions monitoring (sanctions compliance)

• Assisting with sanctions monitoring procedures, including analysing and resolving matches and escalating as required.

4) Gifts and hospitality (anti-bribery and corruption compliance)

• Providing support and assistance to the FCS Team on Anti-Bribery and Corruption related matters, including proactively triaging and analysing Gifts and Hospitality approval requests and escalating relevant data, records and materials in accordance with the firm's Anti-Bribery and Corruption policies.

5) Corrective Actions Support

• Actively executing high-volume, structured CDD and AML remediation projects to ensure client files are brought up to the required regulatory standard within designated project timelines.
• Supporting the delivery of targeted client file review programs, actively managing down backlogs of periodic reviews, and ensuring consistent application of the firm's risk-rating methodology.
• Working efficiently under structured project timelines and meeting defined volume and quality targets to help the firm meet its regulatory and operational commitments.
  

6) Other

• Supporting the FCS Team in monitoring quality control for existing clients, with a focus on client due diligence and risk assessments. This includes recording relevant data and analysing trends, and acting promptly on quality assurance feedback.
• Assisting with managing and maintaining internal records, know-how, and databases, including developing and updating content for internal guidance and knowledge management.
• Providing support and assistance to the FCS Team with respect to regulatory reporting, as required.
• Develop good working relationships with key internal stakeholders, including the wider FCS Team, other Legal Department teams, and business and functional teams across the international network.
• Assisting with other FCS related matters and projects as assigned by the Head of Financial Crime and Sanctions.

Key Requirements

• Strong understanding of relevant AML/CTF regulation and related compliance issues, ideally gained in an international law firm/professional services firm/financial institution.
• Previous hands-on experience of client due diligence, ongoing monitoring, client reverifications and/or sanctions screening in a KYC, onboarding or compliance operations environment.
• General understanding of ethical rules and guidelines and related compliance issues applicable to international law firms.
• General understanding of the transactions conducted by an international law firm and the associated compliance risks.
• Effective written and oral communication skills essential, e.g. clearly articulating risk issues when escalating in writing or verbally to more senior members of the FCS Team.
• Must have a close attention to detail (and maintains accurate and timely records of all work undertaken) and be used to working to very high standards of accuracy and efficiency, and adheres to the procedures, best practice and templates relevant to the role.
• Strong organisational, prioritisation and time management skills required.
• Strong analytical and research skills.
• Good judgment and decision-making capabilities and ability to take initiative.
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced team environment.
• Actively participate in team meetings and consistently demonstrate engagement and visibility as a team member.
• Able to manage a high volume of BAU work to agreed timescales alongside project activity.
• A high level of IT skills is essential, including familiarity with Excel, Word, Outlook and web-based research.

Inclusion

Freshfields is an equal opportunities employer and all applications received by the firm will be considered by the firm on the basis of their merit alone and we welcome applications from all suitably qualified individuals regardless of background. All offers of employment will be conditional on the candidate having/securing the right to work in the UK and providing the firm with evidence of that right (as required by the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006) prior to employment commencing.

Freshfields is a Ban the Box employer. We ask applicants to disclose criminal convictions only when a conditional job offer is made. A conviction does not automatically lead to withdrawal of the offer: we make decisions on a case-by-case basis and take a number of factors into account (e.g. the role you are applying for and the circumstances of the offence). You would have the opportunity to discuss the matter with us before we make a decision.