Roman Dexter

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Roman has over 25 years’ experience handling regulatory investigations and enforcement in a range of areas, especially competition & consumer law, AML & financial crime, along with commercial/civil disputes, insurance and strategic risk advice.

Areas of practice

Roman has deep expertise in resolving regulatory and corporate misconduct cases, including anti-money laundering, fraud & financial crime, corruption, competition/antitrust, and consumer law. He also works on insurance, privacy, fintech, and transport law matters, and has a specialty practice in motorsport and automotive cases.

Roman has had a role in most Commerce Commission cartel cases over the last 15 years, including shipping, real estate, freight forwarding, waste, air cargo, electrical switchgear, building products, and diagnostic lab-testing markets.

Widely regarded as New Zealand’s most experienced Anti-Money Laundering lawyer, working in this field since 2007, Roman helps reporting entities deal with investigations and complex issues with New Zealand’s three AML/CFT Supervisors, Police Financial Intelligence Unit, and on occasion involving AUSTRAC in Australia or the Cook Islands.

Pro bono roles include serving as chair of the IBA’s AML & Sanctions Experts committee, advisory director to ACAMS Australasia, and NZ law partner to TRACE International.

An independent barrister since 2016, Roman was previously a partner at boutique firm Wilson Harle. His earlier career was at leading law firms Chapman Tripp, Clyde & Co London, and Phillips Fox.

News & Insights

What is the difference between aiding and abetting?

REGULATORY PROCEEDINGS & LITIGATION

So what is the difference between aiding and abetting? Aiding, as the names suggests, is helping. To abet means to urge on, instigate, or encourage. In any criminal case a defendant can either be charged as a principal or as a party to the offence.

Rae v Commissioner of Police [2023] NZSC 156

CASE SUMMARY

Does the Supreme Court have jurisdiction to hear an appeal from the Court of Appeal’s decision to decline to recall a judgment in a civil proceeding? The Supreme Court addressed this issue, among others, in an “unusual, combined leave-and-appeal hearing”.