M L
Patrícia Garcia
Principal Associate
Patrícia Garcia is a Senior Associate in the criminal, regulatory offences and compliance department at Morais Leitão, having joined the firm in September 2018. Her practice focuses on White Collar Crime, investigations and Anti-Financial Crime (AFC).
She advises on economic and financial criminal law and compliance, with a particular focus on the prevention and prosecution of bribery and corruption, money laundering and terrorist financing. She regularly acts in regulatory offence and criminal proceedings, representing companies and individuals before supervisory authorities and criminal investigation bodies.
She advises clients on internal and cross-border investigations, assisting at every stage of the process, from fact-finding through to engagement with the competent authorities.
She also advises on the design, implementation and assessment of anti-bribery and corruption and anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) compliance programmes.
In 2023 she completed a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Criminal Justice at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), with research focused on anti-money laundering.
Patrícia Garcia is a member of the European Fraud and Compliance Lawyers (EFCL), the European Criminal Bar Association (ECBA) and the Compliance Women Committee (CWC).
She is the author of the monograph The Portuguese Transposition of the 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive – Minding the Legislative Gap and of several articles on criminal and regulatory offences law, particularly on anti-money laundering and international sanctions. She is a regular guest speaker at conferences on these matters.
Before joining Morais Leitão, in August 2017 she completed summer vacation schemes at Linklaters, in Lisbon in the Public Law practice and in London in the Banking & Leveraged Finance practice.
Education
Law Degree (University of Lisbon School of Law, 2018). Attendance at postgraduate studies in Criminal Law and Medicine (Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Studies, University of Lisbon School of Law, 2019). Master of Laws, Criminal Justice (Queen Mary University of London, School of Law, 2023).
Languages
Portuguese and English.
Memberships
Portuguese Bar Association (admitted in 2021). European Fraud and Compliance Lawyers (EFCL). European Criminal Bar Association (ECBA). Compliance Women Committee (CWC).
