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Goldsmiths Law lecturer shortlisted for 2021 Financial Times Bracken Bower Prize

We’re delighted to learn that Aaron Taylor, Associate Lecturer in Law in our Department, has been shortlisted for the 2021 Financial Times Bracken Bower Prize. The prize is awarded for the best business book proposal by an author under 35.

This is extremely well-deserved recognition of the originality and pertinence of Aaron’s work, in both legal practice and academia. Aaron’s work has been a great fit for our LLB Law programme, with his dynamic expertise in areas such as commercial law, art law and financial wrongdoing perfectly complementing innovative elements of our LLB Law programme including our emphasis on clinical legal education.

Aaron’s proposed book is called Washed: Dirty Money and the Art Market. It will explore the abuse of the art market for money laundering, fraud, and financial crime.

Aaron’s book will discuss three key issues:

–  The first is the role of secrecy – in particular the use of offshore structures such as freeports, and the role of confidentiality provisions in private art sales – in the facilitation of money laundering and tax evasion.

– The second is the use of art, and especially looted antiquities, in the evasions of sanctions and the financing of terrorism.

– The third is the future of dirty money in the age of non-fungible tokens and cryptocurrencies.

It will then consider the regulation of the art market in the UK, US and EU, and alternative approaches that might be adopted to deal with the challenges of the digital future.

The book will draw on Aaron’s experience as a practising commercial barrister at Fountain Court Chambers and his academic work at Goldsmiths. Aaron has acted as counsel in notable art law disputes and in high-value fraud and corruption claims. He is on the Serious Fraud Office’s panel of junior counsel for cross-border proceeds of crime cases.

In our Department, Aaron lectures on a variety of topics relating to financial wrongdoing, across the civil and criminal law, and runs a branch of the Department’s Law and Policy Clinic on the law relating to fraud and corruption. He is the founding editor of Financial Wrongs, a blog and online resource on the law relating to financial crime.

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