We can assist with most aspects of corporate and personal insolvency, including rescue and recovery work, voluntary arrangements, directors’ duties and liabilities and bankruptcy.

We are familiar with corporate insolvencies including administrations, receiverships and liquidations, where we can assist in acting for administrators, the insolvent company, directors and interested parties, including banks. As our track records show, one of our partners acted in several matters in the Insolvency and Companies List arising from the high profile collapse of London Capital & Finance plc. These include Re London Oil & Gas [2019] EWHC 3675, which concerned a protocol for the handling of privileged information by administrators.

We also have expertise in deceased insolvent estates, with one of our partners having acted in relation to several complex issues and claims following the death of the Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky.

We are highly experienced in proceedings seeking the recovery of assets. That includes proceedings advising or contesting findings by court-appointed receivers and administrators and liquidators, for example about proprietary claims made to substantial assets.

Our practice encompasses disputes and issues involving all aspects of the financial services industry.

Our partners have lengthy track records of acting for retail and investment banks and other financial institutions, their counterparties and investors in financial products. Many of their cases have had an international element and raised issues of significant importance to the industry as a whole.

As a result, we have a deep knowledge of the industry and are especially well-placed to provide advice and solutions in respect of the types of finance-related disputes that all investors, financial institutions, their customers and counterparties face.

Our expertise and experience covers disputes across a broad range, including:

• Operational, general banking including bank-customer-relationships; accounts, payments and payment fraud, payment systems, fraud, insolvency, confidentiality and anti-money laundering;
• Commercial and corporate financing, secured lending, enforcement and recoveries, restructuring issues;
• Professional negligence claims in respect of professional advisors;
• Capital markets, loan markets and syndicated lending, structured finance, securitisations and the issue of and investment in securities;
• Fraud, asset tracing and recovery cases frequently involving breaches of fiduciary duty and constructive trusts;
• Misselling and other disputes involving financial products and derivatives, including structured products, credit derivatives, interest rate hedging products and forex trades and related regulatory matters;
• All forms of trade finance and trade finance instruments, including letters of credit, standby letters of credit and performance bonds/guarantees, bills of exchange and promissory notes; and
• Litigation in the markets involving investors, shareholders and banks.

Clients can count on us for our expertise, experience, teamwork, and ability to build partnerships. We are flexible, pragmatic and progressive, and aim to work closely with you to develop the advice and assistance you need to resolve your legal challenges.

We are experienced in acting in complex, high profile national and international white collar crime cases, which often have serious reputational implications for clients.

We have worked with significant listed companies on substantial investigations conducted by prosecuting authorities. We also act for individuals subject to investigation and prosecution by agencies, including the Serious Fraud Office. One of our partners has recently advised an individual suspect in connection with a long-running and high profile SFO investigation into the collapse of a fund.

We regularly advise on all aspects of money -laundering and sanctions compliance issues and bribery concerns in companies in all sectors, usually with an international perspective. Our capability in this area reinforces our expertise in civil fraud, financial and banking matters.

Partners in the firm are well-known for their work across multiple jurisdictions in complex fraud cases and investigations, especially in connection with high value claims. We have been instructed in many leading civil fraud cases, both domestic and international, for both claimants and defendants.

We are experts in dealing with large scale, multi-jurisdictional and sensitive fraud disputes and investigations. One particular strength is the use of orders for interim relief, tracing remedies and interlocutory proceedings, including freezing orders (frequently referred to as one of English law’s ‘nuclear weapons’) to prevent dissipation of assets prior to the issue of proceedings.

One of our partners played a leading role in the Berezovsky litigation, which has flowed naturally into significant cases involving other oligarchs and ultra-high-net-worth-led businesses. Another of our partners has played a leading role in major litigation involving the Middle-East and Africa, which also continue to be a significant focus of the practice.

Our commercial fraud practice overlaps with and reinforces other areas of our expertise, such as general commercial litigation, banking and finance disputes, and our expertise in complex criminal fraud matters, usually with an international dimension. Often such cases involve parallel proceedings, which we are well-practised at managing.

Our partners have acted in some of the most high profile cases in the Commercial Court and Chancery Division in recent years. As our track records show, these include some of the biggest and most noteworthy cases in the financial markets to emerge from the credit crisis, some involving bribery and fraud.

Our partners act for successful individuals, families, and businesses, working alongside international wealth planning and private client lawyers in Europe, Russia, and Asia as their specialist London counsel.

Our focus is on clients with high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth, often involving complex international trust structures and the businesses that support them. We act for both individuals and private client institutions in this area, including private banks and investment banking colleagues, who advise entrepreneurial clients.

We have expertise in contentious probate and trust litigation, including claims for proprietary estoppel together with challenging the use of trusts to help preserve family wealth.

Our expertise extends to proceedings to remove executors, construction summonses, rectification proceedings, professional negligence and breach of trust claims arising from wills, trusts and inheritance tax. One of our partners acted for Ekaterina Berezovskaya in her application to remove the administrators of the estate of her late father, the Russian oligarch Boris Berezosky, which led to her appointment as Special Administrator and in related proceedings before the Court of Appeal regarding the use of confidential information ([2014] EWCA 431).

We can also advise if the international dimension of the work needs to be considered, including conflicts of laws. We are very familiar with the relationship between onshore and offshore corporate structures and contentious trusts disputes, including instances where effectively a corporate structure is being used in an improper way such that the corporate veil can be pierced.

Our emphasis is on protecting wealth and minimising litigation costs, ensuring trusts remain valuable vehicles for asset preservation.

We are also able to advise wealth managers and private banking businesses on the same issues.