As Senior Partner, Michael leads the firm and the Business Crime team. He has acted in many of the most high profile and sensitive business crime cases of the last 25 years, at Peters & Peters and before that as a prosecutor. He is the author of a respected textbook on criminal cartels and co-author of the leading resource on sanctions.

Before joining Peters & Peters, Michael was a senior specialist prosecutor at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) Headquarters. There, he was a key member of a small specialist unit responsible for the prosecution of serious and high-profile fraud, terrorist, state-security and special interest criminal matters, including the Stansted Airport Afghan airline hijacking and the prosecution of Paul Burrell (Princess Diana’s butler).

Since joining Peters & Peters, Michael has acted for companies, senior executives and HNW individuals in many of the most high-profile and complex national and international business crime cases. He has particular expertise in international corruption, criminal cartels, financial sanctions, INTERPOL, extradition and private prosecutions.

He has been recognised twice in The Lawyer’s Hot 100 (2009 & 2017) being described as being ‘top of the referral lists of many City firms for independent advice for directors’. Michael has also been recommended as a 'leading individual' on International Sanctions by Who's Who Legal Trade & Customs 2021: "The excellent Michael O'Kane ranks highly among peers thanks to his impressive work on export controls and international sanctions".

In 2011, the Financial Times recognised him as one of the UK’s most innovative lawyers and he is listed by Who’s Who publication as one the world’s leading investigative lawyers.