Commercial Fraud

Lisa Linklater KC is a leading silk; an expert barrister with an established reputation nationally for her expertise, advocacy, advice and strategic excellence in cases involving commercial fraud, particularly in the context of shareholder disputes and corporate insolvency.

Lisa is recommended as a Band 1 silk by both Chambers and Partners UK Bar 2024 and Legal 500 UK Bar 2024, which recognise the strength of Lisa’s skills in Commercial Dispute Resolution, Chancery and Insolvency and restructuring.

Lisa’s practice in this area is usually high value, high profile and legally and/or factually complex. Her practice in this field includes:

• Asset recovery and tracing;
• Breach of trust;
• Breaches of directors’ duties;
• Cross-border issues;
• Knowing receipt;
• Dishonest assistance;
• Unlawful means conspiracy;
• Emergency interim relief (including freezing orders, interim injunctions and proprietary injunctions);
• Transactions at an undervalue and to defraud creditors;
• Claims that documents have been forged;
• Legal professional privilege and the iniquity exception;
• Piercing the corporate veil;
• Account of profits and equitable compensation;
• Sham transactions and
• Cases involving parallel or potential criminal proceedings.

Lisa brings over 25 years of experience in advising and representing a diverse range of companies, individuals, banks and other lenders, office holders of insolvent companies, Government departments, local authorities and other public sector bodies in this field of practice. She has significant experience in claims (for both Claimants and Defendants) involving multiple causes of action or claimants or defendants, cross-border issues or a variety of strategic options. Lisa is adept in cases involving forensic accounting, digital forensic expert reports and other specialist and expert evidence.

Lisa’s experience and expertise as lead trial Counsel in the Business and Property Courts of the High Court of Justice and in the Court of Appeal underpins the strength of her oral and written advocacy and strategic excellence at all stages of commercial fraud disputes. While a substantial part of Lisa’s work is in the Business and Property Courts of the High Court of Justice in Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle, Lisa is also regularly instructed in cases in London, Birmingham and Bristol and she takes cases from across England and Wales.

Lisa is sensitive to the particular pressures on clients and legal teams in this field of practice and is valued for leading and fostering positive, cohesive and collaborative teams to effectively advance clients’ cases. She regularly leads legal teams that include lawyers specialist in the law and practice of different legal jurisdictions or complementary fields of practice, including criminal law and procedure.

Lisa served as Junior Counsel to the Crown (Attorney General’s Regional Panel) for three consecutive terms (18 years) and was regularly instructed by the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and HM Revenue and Customs in a very wide range of high-profile and complex cases involving fraud, often involving parallel criminal or insolvency proceedings. She is currently instructed as lead Counsel by the Secretary of State for Business and Trade in a complex and high profile director disqualification in the retail sector.

Recent highlights of Lisa’s practice in silk in commercial fraud include:

• Acting in alleged claim by company administrators of £12 million for alleged knowing assistance and knowing receipt of breach of trust and alleged breaches of directors’ duties. Lisa is collaborating with Jersey lawyers in respect of a freezing order obtained in the Royal Court of Jersey (2023 – ).
• Acting in respect of very substantial property portfolio in claim involving allegations of sham within a family business (2023 – ).
• Successfully acted for Petitioner in unfair prejudice petition under s994 of the Companies Act 2006 involving allegations of tax evasion in respect of a company in the hospitality sector in London (2021 onwards, case settled before trial listed in 2023).
• Successfully deflected threatened removal as a director of a company of client who was accused of tax evasion, securing important strategic success in bitter dispute between family members of a business in the leisure sector. Lisa acted in parallel with other silks in different fields of specialism (2022).
• Acting in claim for specific performance of shareholders’ agreement, requiring shares to be transferred for nil consideration, including responding to claim that a shareholder agreement has been forged (2022 – 2023).

Lisa’s experience in commercial fraud before taking silk includes:

• Securing a favourable settlement for the defendants to a £5 million misfeasance and transaction defrauding creditors claim, brought by the liquidators of an offshore partnership that had moved onshore (2018 – 2021) (HCt).
• Acting in a shareholder dispute involving a company in the energy sector and the alleged misappropriation of over £2 million by a director (2021) (HCt).
• Successfully obtaining the withdrawal of an appeal against an assessment of over £1m in a complex MTIC tax fraud involving precedent legal issues and in which the fraud had taken place in Poland and Hungary (2016 – 2021).
• Successfully resisting an application to remove a trustee, alleged to have misappropriated trust funds, in the context of a factually and legally complex property dispute within a family spanning 40 years in respect of a property portfolio valued at c. £4m and alleged partnership, in which she led other Counsel (2020) (HCt).
• Successfully obtaining settlement for Defendants to serious claims of knowing assistance, knowing receipt and related tracing claims, brought by a company registered in Gibraltar, acting by its liquidators, where the claims and costs were in excess of £1 million (2017) (HCt).
• Successfully defending injunctive relief proceedings brought by a major manufacturer of bed products that had purchased a portfolio of properties from administrators in a “fire sale” and obtaining favourable settlement of claim before trial. The claim centred on allegations of civil fraud and was related to the first modern slavery prosecution in England (2016) (HCt).
• Successfully representing the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in winding up numerous companies in the public interest, including companies that had:
  • Acted as the trustee of pension funds of over £4 million and yet could not clearly explain the application of those funds (2018) (HCt).
  • Defrauded members of the public who had understood that the companies would engage in trading in binary options on their behalf Directional Solutions Ltd & ors(2017) (HCt).
  • Falsely promised investors in the United Kingdom lucrative returns on alleged gold mining operations. The companies were registered in South and Central America (2015) (HCt).
  • Successfully representing the Official Receiver in both the Crown Court and the High Court in connection with civil proceedings arising from a criminal investigation into the storage and sale of non-duty paid goods and associated money laundering activity (2015) (Proceedings in both the HCt and Crown Ct).

Lisa Linklater KC commercial fraud barrister is a member of the editorial advisory board of the Company Lawyer, a specialist journal, published by Sweet and Maxwell. She is widely published in company and insolvency law including in R3’s Recovery and Sweet & Maxwell’s Insolvency Intelligence. Recent seminars presented by Lisa to leading insolvency practitioners, accountancy firms and regional, national and international law firms include shareholder disputes, legal professional privilege and directors’ duties. In 2023, Lisa was chair of a prestigious panel of international experts at the 40th Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime. She is a fellow of R3 and full member of the Insolvency Lawyers’ Association.

Lisa Linklater KC commercial fraud barrister is Vice-chair of the Northern Business and Property Bar Association and is a member of the advisory board of the Centre for Business Law and Practice at the University of Leeds.