Sanctions Masterclass: Understanding and Countering Evasion 101

Sam Cousins is a Senior Associate at ACAMS, where his work includes supporting public-private partnerships and strengthening ACAMS thought leadership pillar through the development of content on sanctions and risk, particularly the Sanctions Masterclass program and Global Monthly Update. Sam's work also focuses on countering ransomware financing, which includes enhancing industry awareness of the anti-financial crime risks associated with ransomware attacks and supporting the mitigation of those risks through policies, training and public-private dialogue.

Prior to ACAMS, Sam worked on the Sanctions Policy team at UK Finance - the trade association for the UK banking sector.

Paige Berges is counsel in Ropes and Gray’s Anti-Corruption and International Risk group. She is a U.S. and UK qualified lawyer with broad cross-border experience conducting internal investigations, managing white collar defence and advising on pro-active compliance programme building. She advises financial institutions/FinTechs, private equity firms, corporate and NGO/charity clients on compliance with Economic and Trade Sanctions, Export Controls, Anti-Money Laundering/Counter-terrorist financing, and Anti-Corruption regulations. In addition to U.S., UK and pan-European practice, Paige brings significant experience helping clients build compliance programmes across Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and the MENA region. Paige also has a strong background in public international law and regularly advises on human rights and humanitarian law and the intersection between financial crime, sanctions and ESG.

Ginny Hildreth is a Vice President on the Financial Crime Legal Americas team at Barclays based in New York.  Ginny advises Barclays’ compliance, legal, and business teams on financial crime issues including economic sanctions, export controls, anti-money laundering, and anti-corruption. Prior to Barclays, Ginny was an associate at a global law firm in New York, representing financial institutions and other major corporations in complex civil litigations and investigations.  Ginny graduated with a Juris Doctor from the University of Chicago Law School and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in East Asian Studies from New York University.

Laura is responsible for the Financial Crime Strategic Policy & Financial Crime External Engagement Teams at Santander UK, which lead on strategic policy development (such as FC approaches to environmental crimes, crypto assets and country risks) across the FC compliance disciplines; and leading the engagement for the bank on financial crime matters; working alongside government, regulatory colleagues and other external stakeholders .

Prior to this role, Laura has headed up the Sanctions Policy and AML Policy teams at Santander UK, as well as managing more operational FC teams, included SAR operations and PEP & Sanctions Screening teams in Alliance & Leicester. Laura has also spent time over the years working on secondment to the British Bankers Association & UK Finance, supporting a variety of workstreams from consultations on the consent regime, working with Government on suspended accounts and more recently, online harms and the impact of social media enablers on the facilitation of fraud and financial crime.

George is a global expert anti-financial crime at ACAMS and member of ACAMS' global SMEs team. He previously headed the Paris branch of a leading corporate intelligence consultancy and has strong credentials in corporate investigations and political risk analysis.

An ACAMS-certified global sanctions specialist (CGSS) and certified anti-money laundering specialist (CAMS), he has expertise in the geopolitics, security and economics of wider Europe and the former Soviet Union. George has written extensively on international affairs and has published to date two books and hundreds of articles.