Sarah Wilson

Profile

Biography

Professor Sarah Wilson

LLB (Cardiff), MA (Swansea), PhD (Swansea)

Sarah studied Law as an undergraduate at Cardiff Law School, and then studied History at Swansea University, where she obtained an MA in 19th Century British History and moved to PhD study supported by a fully funded ESRC studentship.

Sarah’s doctoral thesis examined legal responses and social constructions of financial crime in Britain from c.1850 to the present. She has published widely in the sphere of financial crime and is a recognised international authority, especially in Europe, North America and Canada, and the APAC region, with her work increasingly applied to Global South experiences of financial crime. For almost 10 years, alongside her academic work, Sarah was a consultant editor for Lloyds Law Reports Financial Crime, commenting on UK and international decisions for practitioners. She has also researched Financial Law, particularly financial regulation and banking law, providing multi-disciplinary commentaries on the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis.

Sarah’s 2014 monograph The Origins of Modern Financial Crime: Historical foundations and current problems in Britain provided a pioneering ‘history’ of Britain’s experiences of financial crime. A multidisciplinary analysis of financial crime and its legal and perceptual challenges, it drew on Criminology, History, and Management and Business Studies, as well as widely across Law (criminal; banking and commercial; corporate; trusts and equity; and tort). It sought to address gaps in understandings of how societies experience crime for crime historians and criminologists, while aligning crime and criminalisation with present-day capitalist thinking and the history of business, economy, and finance. It invited lawyers to explore connections between past experiences and current challenges for law, and was a broader ‘call’ for social science disciplines to embrace historical thinking more fully. It was shortlisted for the 2015 Wadsworth Prize, awarded by the Business Archives Council for outstanding contribution to the study of British Business History.

This message of encouraging greater use of history and historical methodology in legal research and teaching reflects Sarah’s ‘Law and History’ mission for legal scholarship and legal education. It is embedded across her scholarship on financial crime, financial regulation, banking law, corporate law, trusts law, and charity law, and in dedicated work on historical approaches as a method for legal analysis. Sarah foregrounds relationships between ‘law and society’, drawing on legal history’s interest in understanding law’s own history for the present (e.g. Ibbetson, 1999) and on History’s view of past, present and future as lying on the same continuum of societal evolution (Tosh, 2010).

Sarah developed a passion for Trusts and Equity as an undergraduate, and this has remained a constant in her academic life. She is currently pursuing multiple Trusts-related research projects, particularly on the use of trusts and equitable doctrines in financial and commercial settings, and on trusts and ‘family home’ ownership, especially formalities and constitution requirements for express trusts.

Sarah’s longstanding interests also include Charity Law, and she is currently researching charity and society, past, present, and future. A further interest lies in human and nonhuman animal relations and law, and the pursuit of multispecies justice as ‘social justice’. This is becoming a distinct research agenda, interplaying with her work on charity law, historical legal analysis, and legal education and pedagogy.

Sarah has held Visiting positions at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Griffith University, and the University of Queensland, and is active in many international research networks. She is part of the executive of the Australian and New Zealand Law and History Society, and is an elected Network Chair for the Criminal Justice Network of the European Social Sciences History Conference (ESSHC) – a biennial global conference organised through the International Institute of Social History – and has been involved in organising ESSHC 2025 (University of Leiden) and ESSHC (École normale supérieure de Lyon). She was previously joint convenor for the Legal History subsection of the Society of Legal Scholars (SLS).

Sarah is an established peer reviewer for top legal journals (including the Modern Law Review and Oxford Journal of Legal Studies) and for journals in History, Criminology, and Management and Business. She has also reviewed for leading publishers including Edinburgh University Press, Edward Elgar, Elsevier, Hart Publishing, Oxford University Press, Palgrave, and Routledge, and has written invited book reviews, such as Walter Scheidel, The Great Leveler (Princeton University Press, 2017), for Business History Review (2017).

Sarah’s teaching mirrors her research interests. She currently teaches Equity and Trusts, Financial Crime, and Law and History at undergraduate level, and Financial Crime and Legal Systems on YLS’s PGT programmes. She has supervised many successful PGR projects, including on the history of crime and criminal justice; crime, innovation and the technology of money; financial crime and New Institutional Economics; financial scandals and corporate governance; directors’ duties; and intermediated securities in English Law. She is also an experienced PhD examiner across Law and in Criminology, History, and Management and Business, on topics including financial crime, financial regulation, legal history, trusts and equity, Islamic finance, and jointly owned property. Her historical approach is most evident in the undergraduate Law and History module and her contribution to year 1 study in ILS (Introduction to Law and Society), but is embedded in her other teaching too.

Sarah is also passionate about legal pedagogy, in domestic legal education and global conversations alike. Between 2000 and 2015 she authored Todd and Wilson’s Textbook on Trusts and Equity (Oxford University Press), an early adopter of interactive dialogue with student learners through its writing style and embedded activities, and the first Trusts student text to feature a dedicated chapter on Trusts, Equity, and Commerce. She regularly presents on legal education at conferences in the UK and overseas (particularly in the APAC region). Her pedagogical publications examine the role of law schools within the wider community; mental health and wellbeing in legal education; and legal education as ‘situated learning’. Current projects include law curriculums as ‘crowded curriculums’; legal education in the age of AI; teaching Property Law in the age of polycrisis; and new approaches for teaching Business and Commercial Law.

Research

Overview

• Financial Crime
• Financial Law (financial regulation, banking and society)
• Trusts and equity (Trusts, Equity and Commerce; express trust creation; family home ownership)
• Law and history and legal history
• Legal education and pedagogy

Projects

Charity and Society, past present and future

This project examines the embedded place of Charity in society in Britain and looks to understand this as part of a wider western tradition of valuing charity. It foregrounds the ways in which charity is embedded, looking at its standing within a wider sphere of voluntarism, and at close relationships between charity and the State as part of understanding relationships between ‘charity and society’. In identifying charity’s strongly pro-social image, even within more critical insights on its operations, the project looks to critique charity and its perceived attractiveness in novel ways- including using Zemiological study (the study of harm in society), critical Management Studies, cultural theology, and, of course, history. 

Trusts, Equity and Commerce 

This project foregrounds the presence of trusts and equitable principles in commercial spaces, which are more readily associated with contractual principles and obligations. It examines the prevalence of trusts and equity in these spaces, and the implications of this for academic understandings of commercial law and practice, and possible implications of this application of trusts for trusts law itself. Focused on the current legal landscape and that of the recent past, this is also a strongly ‘historically’ framed project. 

Trusts, Fiduciary obligations, and 19th century savings banks 

This is a project which arises from my interest in trusts law, and the 19th century application of trusts law and fiduciary principles outside conventional trusts settings. It is being undertaken in collaboration with business historians Professor Linda Perriton (University of Stirling) and Dr Stuart Henderson (Ulster University) and will promote understandings of trusts and trusts law outside the discipline of Law, in being written primarily for Management and Business Studies scholars and students. 

Financial crime from 18th century to the present 

This project has arisen to produce a contribution to the Cambridge University Press (CUP) Elements series. This series promotes accessible reading of scholarly topics for non-expert audiences. This project is framed by criminal justice history interest and is being led by Professor Carolyn Strange (Australian National University). It will feature contributions from experts drawn from across the world writing on wide ranging ‘crime history’ topics. 

Publications

Selected publications

Book

• The Origins of Modern Financial Crime: Historical foundations and current problems in Britain (Routledge, 2014) 

Selected articles and chapters 

• ‘Situating Law and History teaching in the modern Law School: Situated Learning explored through the significance attached to ‘lives lived’ in the 21st century’ in H Gibbon and N Graham et al Situated Learning: Climate Change, First Nations Recognition, Generative AI (Routledge (Emerging Legal Education), 2026).
• ‘Re-imagining Charity in English imagination: Advocating a Social Harm Critique of Charity as a Cornerstone for the ‘Organization of a Civilized Social Life’ in Twenty-First Century Britain’ in R Grantham and K Weinert (eds) Charity Law and Governance: Private Purpose, Public Benefit, and the Regulatory Strategy (Hart, 2025).
• ‘New approaches in Corporate Law History: History as a Resource for Navigating Uncertain Times’, in V Barnes and J Hardman (eds) The Origins of Company Law: Methods and Approaches (Hart, 2024).
• ‘Identifying and responding to a ‘wellness imperative’ in UK legal education: Exploring the wellness potential of Law and History study, through the significance attached to ‘lives lived’ in the 21st century’, in J Marychurch et al (eds) Wellness for Law: Reflecting on the Past, Shaping the Future (LexisNexis, 2024).
• ‘Value and Values in Higher Education: Some Reflections From the UK on the Subversive Dimensions of Historical Approaches in the Study of Law’ in  M Duffy et al (eds), Critical Legal Education as a Subversive Activity (Routledge (Emerging Legal Education), 2022).
• (with G Wilson) ‘The interplay between criminal and quasi-criminal enforcement mechanisms in the UK context explored through the prism of ‘market abuse’: Current approaches and historical perspectives’ in V Franssen and C Harding (ed) Quasi-criminal enforcement mechanisms in Europe: Historical origins, contemporary concepts and future perspectives (Hart (European Criminal Law), 2022).
• ‘Identifying ‘Europeanness’ in European white-collar crime: The case study of criminal responses to ‘market abuse’ in N Lord et al (eds) European White-Collar Crime: Exploring the Nature of European Realities (Bristol University Press, 2021).
• (with TT Arvind and J Gray) ‘Financial elites, law and regulation: a historical perspective’ in Y Cassis and G Telesca Financial Elites and European Banking: Historical Perspectives (Oxford University Press, 2017).
• (with G Wilson) 'Is “this time” really “different”?: Reflecting on financial impropriety and criminal liability through the prism of ‘risk …’,  in N Ryder (ed) White Collar Crime and Risk (Palgrave, 2017).
• ‘Financial Crises and “Transformative understandings” of Crime, Past Present and Future’ in N Ryder et al The Financial Crisis and White Collar Crime - Legislative and Policy Responses (Routledge, 2017).
• ‘Law and Equity, and ‘Law and History’ as a resource of critique’, (2017) 11(1) Pólemos: journal of law, literature and culture, 23-40.
• (with G Wilson) ‘Banking and Regulation Post-Crisis: Some Perspectives on the Significance of “Culture” in the UK and Experiences from Australia’, (2016) 31(7) Journal of International Banking Law and Regulation.
• (with TT Arvind and J Gray) ‘From the Mid-Nineteenth Century Bank Failures in the UK to the Twenty-First Century Financial Policy Committee …’ in R Michie, et al (eds) Complexity, Crisis and the Evolution of the Financial System: Critical Perspectives on American and British Banking (Edward Elgar, 2016).
• ‘The new Market Abuse Regulation and Directive on Criminal Sanctions for Market Abuse: European capital markets law and new global trends in financial crime enforcement’, (2015) 16 ERA Forum (the Journal of the Academy of European Law).
• ‘Tort law, actors in the “enterprise economy”, and articulations of nineteenth-century capitalism with law: The Fraudulent Trustees Act 1857 in context’ in TT Arvind and J Steele (eds) Tort law and the legislature: Common law, statute and the dynamics of legal change (Hart, 2012).
• (with G Wilson) ‘The FSA, “credible deterrence”, and criminal enforcement - a “haphazard pursuit”?’ (2014) 21(1) Journal of Financial Crime.
• (with G Wilson) ‘The pursuit of “socially useful banking” in twenty-first century Britain and exploring Victorian interactions between law, religion and financial marketplace values’ (2013) 22 Nottingham Law Journal.

Law Reports/commentaries 

• SOCA v Hymans and Ors [2011] EWHC 3332 (QB), [2012] Lloyd’s Rep FC (3) (Law Report with commentary)
• Pye Phyo Tay Za v Council of the European Union (Case C-376/10 P), [2012] Lloyd’s Rep FC (5) 305–336 (Law Report with commentary)
• US v Malewicka (US Court of Appeals, 7th Cir), [2012] Lloyd’s Rep FC (6)
• In the matter of Paul Donald (Ontario Securities Commission), [2012] Lloyd’s Rep FC (9)
• International Insider Dealing Update, [2013] Lloyd’s Rep FC (3), reporting on:
  • Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission v Lee Sung Ho and Ors (High Court of Hong Kong, HCA 2177A/2011)
  • Mansfield v R and Kizon v R [2012] HCA 49 (High Court of Australia)
  • Securities and Exchange Commission v Obus, No 10-4747-cv, 2012 WL 3854797 (2d Cir 2012)
• Law Report with 3,000-word commentary, [2013] Lloyd’s Rep FC (6) 381–406:
  • 7722656 Canada Inc and Peter Beck (Third Party) v Financial Services Authority (Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber), FS/2011/0017 and FS/2011/0018)
  • Cited in 7722656 Canada Inc and Peter Beck v Financial Conduct Authority (formerly the Financial Services Authority) [2013] EWCA Civ 1662
• DPP (Cth) v JM [2013] HCA 30, [2013] Lloyd’s Rep FC (9)
• Joffe v R; Stromer v R [2012] NSWCCA 277, [2013] Lloyd’s Rep FC (6)
• Fysh v R [2013] NSWCCA 284, [2014] Lloyd’s Rep FC (3)
• Re Hagerty [2014] ABASC 237, [2014] Lloyd’s Rep FC (9)
• US v Newman and Ors, Nos 13-1837-cr(L), 13-1917-cr(con) (2d Cir 2014), [2015] Lloyd’s Rep FC (3)
• US v Salman, No 14-10204 (9th Cir 2015), DC No 3:11-CR-00625-EMC-1, [2015] Lloyd’s Rep FC (9)
• ‘High Frequency Trading: Criminal Liability for “Market Abuse”’, [2015] Lloyd’s Rep FC (5)
• HKSAR v Chan Chi Wan Stephen and Tseng Pei Kun (Court of Appeal, Criminal Appeal No 92 of 2013) [2015]; Secretary for Justice v Chan Chi Wan Stephen and Tseng Pei Kun (Criminal Appeal No 183 of 2014); and HKSAR v Hui Si-Yan Rafael, Kwok Pingkwong, Thomas Chan and Kwan Francis (Court of Appeal, Criminal Appeal No 444 of 2014) [2016], [2016] Lloyd’s Rep FC (4)
• Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission v Lee Kwok Wa and Ors [2018] HKCFA 45 (FACV No 7 of 2018, on appeal from CACV No 33 of 2016), [2019] Lloyd’s Rep FC (3)
• Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa (Consob) v Zecca (Case C-597/16) [2018] (published online)
• Finkelstein v Ontario Securities Commission [2018] ONCA 61 and Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission v Yiu Hoi Ying Charles and Wong Nan Marian (CACV 154/2016), [2018] Lloyd’s Rep FC (4)
• FMA v Warminger [2017] NZHC 327, [2017] Lloyd’s Rep FC (5)
• Finkelstein v Ontario Securities Commission [2016] ONSC 7508, [2017] Lloyd’s Rep FC (3)
• SFO v Tesco Stores Ltd (Case No U20170287) (Southwark Crown Court, 27 March and 10 April 2017), [2019] Lloyd’s Rep FC (5)

Teaching

Undergraduate

• Property Law (Equity and Trusts)
• Introduction to Law and Society
• Financial Crime 
• Law and History 
• UG Dissertations

Postgraduate

• Legal Systems and Research Methods (Legal System) – module co-lead 
• Financial Crime 
• LLM Dissertation

External activities

Memberships

• Society for Legal Scholars
• Royal Historical Society
• Social History Society
• Economic History Society

Editorial duties

• Editorial Board Member of Lloyds Law Reports (Financial Crime)
• White Rose College of the Arts & Humanties (WRoCAH) Peer Review - College Reviewer
• Directorof SOLON: A network of those working in social sciences seeking interdisciplinary partnerships with others with similar interests
• Consultant Expert for the BBC 1 Series ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’
• Peer Reviewer for Routledge Law and Historical Research
• External Examiner: School of Law, Liverpool John Moores University