Compliance Officer

The role

Bates Wells operates a centralised client and matter opening service across the firm to ensure compliance at client inception with the firm’s regulatory and statutory obligations. You will be the first point of contact for queries from staff and provide support to the PSR team who provide advice on professional standards, regulatory compliance and risk management.

Key responsibilities

You will provide a centralised client and matter inception service to clients engaging the firm. You will deal with client on-boarding and day to day general queries. You will ensure that tasks are dealt with in a timely and efficient manner. Where required, you will escalate to a relevant PSR team member.

You will maintain an up to date knowledge and understanding of Bates Wells’ internal policies and procedures for client inception and carry out database administration responsibilities. This will include:

Client inception

 Reviewing and processing client and matter inception documentation to ensure new clients and matters are opened in a timely and efficient manner

 Conducting electronic searches and assessing the client due diligence (CDD) / enhanced due diligence (EDD) requirements for individual clients

 Drafting client correspondence to request the appropriate client due diligence materials and liaising with fee earning and support team members, as necessary, to ensure documentation is obtained efficiently and that any client queries are dealt with appropriately

 Ensuring all required CDD/EDD information is obtained for clients of the firm and identifying when further information is required where high risk factors are identified

Anti-money laundering developing and maintaining a comprehensive understanding of anti-money laundering and financial crime legislation, and a comprehensive understanding of client due diligence requirements.

 Responsible for maintaining a comprehensive understanding of how to explain and identify who an ultimate beneficial owner is for each of the firm’s client types.

 Providing guidance to staff across Bates Wells in respect of anti-money laundering and financial crime, and escalating more complex issues and queries to more senior members of the PSR team.

 Responsible for maintaining a comprehensive knowledge of potential red flags regarding the client and work types across the firm and the jurisdictions within which the firm’s clients are based.

 Carrying out client due diligence on a full range of clients (including analysing documents provided by clients and advising whether further information or enhanced due diligence is required.

 Using a number of different databases to obtain due diligence material and developing a schedule of reliable sources for CDD materials.

 Carrying out online searches of the firm’s supplier databases to identify whether a client is a politically exposed person (PEP) or special interest person (SIP), or whether they are subject to sanctions of the subject of any adverse media which could be of concern to the firm.

Conflict of Interest

 Carrying out conflicts searches using data submitted by fee earning teams, requesting further information if required and reporting back results and implementing safeguards if necessary.

 Identifying and researching potential conflict issues and escalating them to more senior members of the PSR team

 Responsible for ensuring appropriate information barriers are created, amended and maintained, whilst ensuring any issues arising out of the information barrier process are flagged to a more senior members of the PSR team and assisting in the maintenance of the firm’s information barriers register.

Specific tasks may change over time, so we’ll need you to be adaptable and flexible as we continue to meet our clients’ needs.

Which qualities do we look for?

 The ability to build, maintain and nurture relationships

 A client-centric approach

 Teamwork – there is a place for individual effort but we highly value a collaborative approach

 A results-focused mentality – we hope you’ll challenge the status quo if you feel it’ll benefit our work

 High efficiency when working under pressure with a ‘can do’ attitude

 Excellent written and verbal communication skills