Author: Faculty of Business and Law

UWE Women Researchers Mentoring Scheme: Applications open for mentors and mentees until 13 January 2017

Author Faculty of Business and Law | Posted on

The Women Researchers Mentoring Scheme (WRMS) aims to promote and facilitate professional development for women researchers working at UWE Bristol, helping them reach senior research roles.

Applications to the scheme are now open and will close on Friday 13 January 2017.

This mentoring scheme provides support to female staff to develop and strengthen their research portfolio, thereby making them more able to compete for senior research roles alongside their male counterparts. It also aims to address the imbalance of male and female staff in senior roles. In the longer term, it is anticipated that such a scheme will help to achieve the strategic aim of increasing the number of women in senior research roles across the University.

The scheme offers a specified number of mentoring opportunities which aim to provide mentees with encouragement, support and advice from a more experienced colleague, and to help them realise potential and fulfil their research career aspirations. The scheme will entail a nominated woman researcher being matched to a mentor, who can be a woman or man.

The scheme is available for all women in academic and research roles, employed by UWE Bristol who wish to develop their research careers. Professors, Associate Professors and other experienced researchers are invited to take on mentoring roles.

PhD students, staff seconded from other institutions, staff in receipt of the current Vice-Chancellor’s Early Career Researcher Award and new members of staff who are being mentored as part of their probation period are not eligible to apply as mentees.

Applications are now open for both mentors and mentees. It is important that we gain as much information as possible on each applicant and their reasons for applying to the scheme in order to enable us to make the most suitable mentor/mentee pairing. The WRMS team will strive to match everybody that applies, so we welcome as much details as possible on the application form.

More information and the application form for mentors and mentees can be found here.

Professional Career Events from the Bristol Law School

Author Faculty of Business and Law | Posted on

In November, the Bristol Law School hosted three professional career events for students, consisting of two Masterclass events and the Law School’s own Law Fair.

The two Masterclass events were arranged by students from the Law Society and were designed to help students prepare for the Law Fair. The first Masterclass was on Applications. Anup Vithlani, the Head of Graduate Recruitment at International Law Firm Trowers & Hamlins, came from London with trainee solicitor, Miranda Hamilton-Wood to speak to the students.

Anup explained to the 90+ students in attendance what he looks for in the 1000+ applications that he receives each year for trainee solicitor positions at Trowers. MIranda explained to the audience how she applied for her training contract with trowers and what her experience has been like so far.

The second Masterclass event was on networking. Over 60 students came to hear Rachael Wheatley, Blue Green Learning and Helene Russell, The Knowledge Business give an interactive talk on networking.

Rachel addressed many common fears and misconceptions of networking and gave students the opportunity to practice networking in a relaxed environment.Helene then talked about how successful networking could be supported and enhanced using social media such as Twitter and LinkedIn.

The Masterclass in Networking was followed by the opportunity to practice networking further over some wine with some of the Law tutors as well as two trainees from local law firm VWV, who sponsored the event for the UWE Law Society.

Following on from the two Masterclass sessions, students had the opportunity to attend the Law Fair. 43  43 legal organisations from in and around Bristol took part in the fair, held in UWE’s professional courses teaching rooms. Exhibitors included representatives from Barristers Chambers, Law firms, the RAC, the Government Legal Service and other legal businesses and representative bodies. Over 300 students came to the event, attending various talks, a CV Clinic staffed by practising lawyers and meeting the exhibitors.

Feedback from the employers was extremely positive and included comments such as:  ‘…all of your students were very polite, bright and well prepared and we would very much like to participate in your next law fair’ and ‘Both the pupils and I enjoyed the event very much. I have posted a news item on our website about the fair, publically thanking you for organising the day.”

A new addition to the Fair this year was a Life in Practice Panel where over 75 students listened to  11 Trainee panellists from varying backgrounds, including a UWE graduate, talking about their experiences and giving advice on working in the legal sector. An important message for students to hear was that of staying resilient in a competitive market.

 

An overview of the United Kingdom’s suspicious activity report regime

Author Faculty of Business and Law | Posted on

In this blog, Komkrich Silathong provides a summary of his research on money laundering for his PhD.

The United Kingdom’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) is situated within National Crime Agency (NCA), a centralised national authority for receiving, analysing and evaluating suspicious activity reports (SARs).  This includes information relating to money laundering, associated predicate offences and financing of terrorism that were submitted by reporting entities, which are then disseminated to anti-money laundering (AML) competent authorities.

SARs are used to detect and disrupt money laundering and other predicate offences. The fourth European Union Anti-Money Laundering Directive (EU Directive) and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the 2012 Recommendations as well as the new FATF evaluation methodology require a re-examination of the model and the effectiveness of the UK SAR Regime though the operation of the NCA under its Economic Crime Command for increasing the enhancement for the Home Office efficiently.

SARs can assist to detect and prevent money laundering, however, it can cause problems to all involved. For example, all reporting entities face unnecessary financial burden of SARs reporting and compliance costs. They may submit the poor reporting quality because of a vast number of SARs, which cause the delayed feedback from the concerned authorities (more than 8 working days). What are the long term solutions of these issues?  The NCA’s analysis and evaluation of the SARs identifies the money laundering of typologies, techniques and trends, which can assist the entities to prevent them being fine and improve their reputation from money laundering regime. The NCA revised the SAR glossary codes, guidance booklet details for enhancement the quality of SAR. In September and October 2015, the Home Office and the NCA set the principal for consultation with relevant stakeholders in order to enhance SARs Regime that could promote the protection of money laundering.

Conclusion

The SARs regime plays a significant role in preventing and detecting money laundering. However, the delayed feedback and the unnecessary financial burden have continued to pose problems for the regulated sector.  Therefore, government and the NCA need to carefully respond by managing and reducing unnecessary bureaucracy under the Part 7 of the POCA 2002 and Part 3 of the Terrorism Act 2000.  In October 2016, the government published its Anti-Money Laundering Action Plan, which is vital to enhance the SARs.

BME networking event for Business and Law students

Author Faculty of Business and Law | Posted on

The Bristol Business School and the Bristol Law School celebrated Black History Month 2016 with a fantastic professional networking evening for BME students on 17th November 2016.  Over 50 Law and Business BME professionals and entrepreneurs from across Bristol joined us in order to share their career insights and advise our students.

Organisations in attendance included Elite Solicitors Ltd, Gregg Latchams, Albion Chambers, Bristol Pound CIC, GE Oil & Gas as well as the Black Police Association. Many professionals in attendance were UWE Alumni who were delighted to return to Frenchay and meet the next generation.

Guests and students were treated to a delicious and authentic Caribbean feast provided by the award-winning team at Biblos, managed and owned by UWE Alumni and entrepreneur Will Clarke, also in attendance.

The evening included networking activities and talks from finance experts and motivational coaches as well as inspirational UWE Bristol Alumni. Rodney Wilson (UWE Law) Managing Director of Elite Solicitors shared his career journey with a captive audience. Elite Solicitors opened in the heart of Bristol in 1991, it has since become the leading BME-predominant criminal defence and immigration firm in the South West.

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Photos from the BME networking event

Solicitor-Advocate Melissa Toney (UWE LPC) spoke of breaking several glass ceilings as a successful young black woman, and of her appearances before the Royal Courts of Justice. She championed our female students to set their sights high and go for it!

Rahat Ahmed (UWE Economics) founder of KnowYourPower delivered an inspiring and uplifting account of how he overcame personal struggles to graduate with First Class honours and establish a successful career in finance. Rahat spoke of success, determination and the pursuit of happiness.

The event, the first of its kind at UWE Bristol, was a huge success and energised over 100 students in attendance.

Photos from the evening can be found here.

Our thanks to all alumni who attended the event, which was organised by Dr Zainab Khan (FBL).

A date for your 2017 diaries: 9th February 2017 6pm

Tunde Okewale MBE, the founder of the charity Urban Lawyers and recipient of numerous diversity awards, will be delivering Bristol Law School’s Annual Lecture, ‘No one Rises to Low Expectations.’  Registration for this event will be available online soon.

Terrorist financing, the Financial War on Terrorism and Islamic State of Iraq and Levant

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In a new article in the Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Professor Nicholas Ryder critically considers the effectiveness of the ‘Financial War on Terrorism’ on the funding streams of the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL).

In this article, Professor Ryder concludes that terrorists are able to gain access to finance from a plethora of sources and secondly, there has been a steady increase in ‘cheap’ or ‘inexpensive’ acts of terrorism.  In relation to the this finding, terrorists have previously relied on financial sponsorship from a small number of nation states, which often involve national governments providing financial support.

The article concludes that there has been a steady decline in the availability of this particular terrorist funding stream.  There are two factors that have contributed towards the decline in state sponsored terrorism.  Firstly, there are fewer nation states engaged in sponsoring terrorist groups. Secondly, terrorist groups have adapted to the reduction in state sponsored terrorism and have developed a global and sophisticated network of financial supporters and increased engagement with illegal activity to obtain finances.

The next section of the article highlights how the international community concentrated on tackling money laundering prior to the terrorist attacks in September 2001 and how this policy dramatically altered. In particular, this section concentrates on the development of and definition of the ‘Financial War on Terrorism’. The final part of the article seeks to determine if the ‘Financial War on Terrorism’ is able to tackle the funding streams of ISIL.

The Criminal Finances Bill 2016: time for change?

Author Faculty of Business and Law | Posted on

Author: Dr. Nicholas Ryder, Professor in Financial Crime, University of the West of England, Bristol.

The Criminal Finances Bill represents the most comprehensive legislative to tackle financial crime since the introduction of the Proceeds of Crime Act in 2002.  The Bill represents the conclusion of several financial crime measures that have been introduced since the last general election.  For example, this includes the publication of the National Risk Assessment for Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing in October 2015, the publication of the ‘Action Plan for anti-money laundering and terrorist finance, the creation of the Panama Papers Task Force and the Anti-Corruption Summit in London.

The Bill introduced a number of measures aimed at improving the ability to investigate the proceeds of crime, provisions to improve the use of suspicious activity reports, obligations to enhance the confiscation of the proceeds of crime, instruments to tackle the facilitation of tax evasion and amendments to the counter-terrorist financing legislative framework.

The Criminal Finances Bill has introduced a number of important measures that could improve how the UK seeks to tackle financial crime.  However, the effectiveness of these measures could be determined by not the desire and ambitions of politicians by of response by law enforcement agencies, who have adopted an apathetic stance towards instigating criminal proceedings against financial criminals.

UWE Bristol Law Alumni Networking Drinks and Pro Bono Panel Discussion

Author Faculty of Business and Law | Posted on

In early November, the Bristol Law School hosted their 3rd alumni networking drinks at the Bristol Law Society.

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The event included a panel discussion on working Pro Bono and was chaired by Marcus Keppel Palmer, UWE Bristol’s Pro Bono Associate Head of Department.

The panel included Julian Hemming, Partner at Osborne Clarke, who has been involved with the pro bono Business and Law Clinic which was recently launched at UWE’s new Enterprise Zone “Future Space”. Julian was joined by Drew Huskisson, Advice Team Manager at the North Bristol Advice Centre, whose job involves providing free and independent advice to those you can’t afford justice.

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Finally the panel was made of two our alumni: Marco Anderson, who is studying for his LLM, and Joshua Hazelwood, who is a Paralegal, Knights Professional Services. Both Joshua and Marco were heavily involved in Pro Bono projects during their time at UWE.

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The event was attended by alumni and invited students and was held at the new premises for the Bristol Law Society.

Photos from the event can be found here.

 

 

UWE Bristol re- launches the International Talent Scheme

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In response to the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education’s report on ‘Supporting and Enhancing the Experience of International Students in the UK’ which highlighted the need for universities to engage with employers, promoting the international student body as a talent pool of cultural knowledge, language skills, and international contacts, UWE Bristol has formed the International Talent Scheme.

The scheme enables international students to access UK businesses and work placement activities whilst completing their academic studies. In turn, these students provide UK organisations with valuable international perspective with a view to trading overseas.  Employers are able to access a wide portfolio of export services such as translation and interpreting, researching and identifying new markets, liaising with key suppliers, customers and clients in specific markets, and providing cultural insight.

Dr Nick Wilton, Academic Director for External Engagement in the Faculty of Business and Law at UWE Bristol, asserts that student insights are enhanced by the school’s curriculum design that develops critical graduate attributes, including global citizenship and cross-cultural awareness.

International Talent works closely with regional SMEs and International Business Councils to promote engagement opportunities and project activity.

A case study from Phineas Products Ltd showcases the exciting scope and versatility of the International Talent programme:  “Liliana took the role of launching our company into the Spanish and South American markets. With the aid of a UKTI OMIS market report she was quickly able to identify the key players in our target market and start communicating with the decision makers. Her native Spanish language was invaluable in building relationships with key buyers in PLC corporations and understanding the market in depth”.

To learn more about International Talent projects and events, please contact Jessica Tomico at internationaltalent@uwe.ac.uk

 

Donna Whitehead Invites Law Alumni to Join New Bristol Business School Celebrations

Author Faculty of Business and Law | Posted on

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“We are proud to have such a vibrant community of Bristol Law School alumni underpinning our success and leading our development.

Our alumni are already a big part of the new Bristol Business school and the construction of its new home on Frenchay Campus. So when the building starts buzzing with life in early January 2017, we would love our alumni to join in the celebrations.

Over the coming weeks, we will be sharing ways for you to help us from donating to the new building, mentoring a current student, giving a guest lecture or getting involved with the alumni festivities, reunion activities and networking events wherever you are based.

Firstly, we would love to see photos of your UWE Bristol days, hear your memories and reflections on what your time here meant to you, to share and feature in the alumni archive for the new building.

All entries will go into our prize draw, to win a private trip for two people in UWE Bristol’s hot air balloon!

  • Tweet them to us using #UWEBristolMemories
  • Send them to us by email or post

It’s the growing success of our network of alumni that has made this new world-class hub for students, academics and professionals possible. We hope you will help us celebrate the successes that have led us to become the Law School we are today, and join us on the next step of our journey to drive innovation, research and economic growth.”

Donna Whitehead
Pro Vice-Chancellor and Executive Dean, Faculty of Business and Law

UWE Bristol alumnus, David Gilroy gives guest lecture to Law students on managing their social media presence

Author Faculty of Business and Law | Posted on
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David Gilroy speaking to students

Yesterday Director of Stuff and Things at Conscious Solutions, David Gilroy gave a guest lecture to Law students on managing their social media presence.

Over 90 students came to hear David talk. He provided the students with warnings about what could go wrong with social media and tips on enhancing their social media presence.

The talk was informative and David even provided a bottle of champagne for the best questions asked by a student.

David is an alumni of UWE Bristol, having studied his Master of Business Administration here in 1996. David commented that he enjoyed coming back to UWE after all this time.

David was a founding member of Conscious Solutions, a digital marketing firm based in Bristol. The firm has an annual turnover in excess of £1.8 million and advises over 300 law firms about their digital marketing, helping them to improve their online footprint in order to attract new clients.