Overview
James Dobias focuses his practice on a wide range of domestic and international corporate crime and investigations related matters, including bribery, corruption, money laundering, tax evasion, fraud, data breach and associated regulatory and compliance issues. He has experience assisting with and advising on internal investigations, Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) investigations, enquiries by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), anti-bribery and corruption compliance, whistleblowing, anti-money laundering (AML) issues and fraud investigations.
Prior to joining McDermott, James trained and practiced as a senior associate at an international law firm, working on a range of investigations by the SFO, FCA, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) and a number of overseas agencies. James also spent over two years working at a major litigation funder, focusing on consumer class actions and group claims, gaining a deep understanding of the funding industry and economics, claimant-side strategy and the funnel from regulatory investigations to civil claims.
Results
White-Collar and Investigations
- Acting for a FTSE 100 engineering company during its global bribery and corruption investigation, including on the negotiation of simultaneous deferred prosecution agreements with the SFO and DoJ, investigations by overseas agencies and on follow-on litigation*
- Acting for a FTSE 100 company during its global bribery and corruption investigation, including on investigations initiated by the SFO and overseas agencies. As part of this, James spent six months on secondment to the company’s litigation team (working on the bribery and corruption investigation) and its business conduct and compliance team (designing and rolling out anti-bribery and corruption procedures across the global organisation)*
- Acting for one of the ‘Big Four’ US investment banks during the investigation by the FCA into manipulation of the foreign exchange market, including advising on follow-on competition damages claims*
- Drafting an independent report into the causes of a UK retail bank’s services outage arising out of the migration of its legacy banking system*
- Acting for a ‘Big Four’ accountancy firm during an investigation by its professional regulator into its conflicts policies and procedures*
Litigation and Commercial Disputes
- Defending a large semiconductor manufacturer in a follow-on competition damages claim arising out of the European Commission’s DRAM infringement decision*
- Defending a global marketing and advertising firm in High Court litigation relating to alleged breach of warranty and fraudulent misrepresentation*
- Defending a UK magic circle law firm in a claim brought by liquidators in the context of a contentious insolvency*
- Advising a FTSE 100 company in a dispute with its joint venture partner, concluding in successful settlement via mediation*
Litigation Funding
- Working on the ‘dieselgate’ emissions group litigation against various vehicle manufacturers in relation to their use of allegedly unlawful emissions defeat devices*
- Working on the ‘interchange’ litigation against Visa and Mastercard in relation to their use of multilateral interchange fees*
- Working on a competition damages class action against a major e-commerce company in relation to its use of ‘most favoured nation’ clauses with third-party sellers on its e-commerce platform*
- Working on a number of data privacy class actions in the UK and under the Dutch WAMCA regime*
* Matter handled prior to joining McDermott Will & Emery
Recognitions
- The Best Lawyers in United Kingdom, “Ones to Watch” in Criminal Practice, 2025
- The Legal 500 UK, Recommended, 2024 – 2025
Community
- Prior Weston Primary School, Governor
Credentials
Education
BPP Law School, GDL / LPC, Distinction, 2011
University of Oxford, BA / MA, First Class Honours, 2009
Admissions
England & Wales
Languages
English
Spanish
