Directory

Ashley Messick

J.S. Held’s Inaugural Global Risk Report Examines Potential Business Risks & Opportunities in 2024

Read More close Created with Sketch.
Ashley Messick
 

Senior Managing Director | Global Investigations

 

+44 20 8706 1923 (Office)
Building No. 3, One Space Business Centre, Offices 43-50, 1st Floor, Green Community, Dubai Investment Park 1
Dubai, UAE

Ashley Messick joined J.S. Held in May of 2022 as part of J.S. Held's acquisition of GPW. Ashley has led a number of high-profile investigations involving debtors originating from Africa, Latin America and Russia/Central Asia. She has tracked down assets and gathered intelligence in some of the world’s most difficult frontier markets, including recent fieldwork in West and Central Africa, the Middle East, and Russia.

Her work has included cases against former government officials charged with embezzling state funds; multi-year investigations into attachable foreign assets of sovereigns and state-owned companies; unravelling complex fraudulent schemes; and tracing the assets of individual debtors.

Ashley is regularly engaged to provide evidence in support of enforcement measures as well as critical intelligence to support their timely application.

Recent work includes:

  • Enforcement against sovereigns and State-Owned Entities (‘SOE’), including providing evidence to successfully argue alter ego and affidavits to support local enforcement proceedings
  • Testifying in the English High Court as the only material witness in an application to sustain a charging order over a UK property which was upheld based largely on her testimony
  • Obtaining evidence to establish UK jurisdiction and subsequently obtain World Wide Freezing Orders
  • Providing intelligence-led advice on negotiation strategy against a national oil company alongside developing an evidential basis for launching arbitration proceedings

Languages:
 

  • English
  • Arabic

Education:
 

  • McGill University (Canada)
  • Masters degree from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)

Professional Affiliations/Memberships/Licenses/Training:
 

  • Who’s Who Legal Global Leader – Asset Recovery Experts 2021, 2023, 2024
  • Who's Who Legal Thought Leader – Asset Recovery Experts 2023
  • Band 1 Global, for Asset Tracing & Recovery by Chambers and Partners, 2023, 2024

Insights by Ashley Messick

Click to learn more
Podcast: The Tea on International Arbitration: Beyond the Shadows
Expert Ashley Messick speaks in this podcast interview about the intricacies of the asset recovery process and how to navigate...
Click to learn more
When Recovering Against a Sovereign, Know Your Opponent
Learn why it is important to take a two-pronged approach in sovereign asset recovery: Conducting the asset tracing work, plus...
PDFDownload PDF