Commercial Fraud
Richard is an experienced junior in the Commercial and Insolvency departments, with extensive experience of acting in an advisory capacity or as an advocate, of matters relating to commercial fraud.
More particularly:
- Richard is regularly instructed in company and insolvency proceedings involving commercial fraud, whether in relation to voidable transactions, breaches of directors’ duties, or otherwise;
- Richard is regularly instructed in unfair prejudice petitions and partnership disputes where allegations of fraud are raised;
- Richard is regularly instructed in cases where there are allegations of breaches or trust or other economic torts, including cases of deceit, conspiracy and the like, as well as claims involving unjust enrichment, asset tracing and accessory liability;
- Richard has experience of contempt of Court proceedings in the High Court, and of dealing with injunctions of all kinds.
Richard is listed as a Leading Individual in Chambers & Partners in Commercial Dispute Resolution and Restructuring/Insolvency, and a Leading Junior in The Legal 500 in Company and Insolvency.
Further, Richard’s work as Junior Counsel to the Crown (Regional A Panel) regularly involves cases of commercial fraud, including cases involving breaches of directors’ duties, public interest winding up petitions and directors’ disqualification proceedings.
Commercial Fraud Cases
Recent and relevant cases include:
Royle v Together Commercial Finance Ltd [2024] EWHC 2915 (Ch) – led by Lesley Anderson KC and involving numerous other silks – concerning allegations of various breaches on the part of a lender, and other parties, including allegations of fraud, said to amount to some £40,000,000
Re Alam Investments Ltd [2023] EWHC 1460 (Ch) – led by Mark Cawson KC and Paul Chaisty KC – 42 day trial of preliminary issues in 5 linked actions, amongst other hearings, concerning control of a family supermarket business and a family history spanning several decades and involving various allegations of fraud and economic tort
Re G – 2023 – unrep – case concerning fictitious citations generated by unchecked use of Chat GPT – reported in Law Society Gazette, 29 May 2023
Re Batra – unrep – acting for receivers of numerous properties comprising hotels in London in an action to seek a validation order for the intended sale of those hotels for a sum in excess of
£15,000,000 in the face of opposition from the debtor – case concerning the scope of the validation order regime under the Insolvency Act 1986 – commentary in Insolvency Intelligence, 2019, Issue 4, p 159 and Sealy v Milman’s Annotated Guide to the Insolvency Legislation
Absolute Living Developments Ltd (in Liquidation) v DS7 Ltd [2018] EWHC 1432 (Ch) & [2018] EWHC 1717 (Ch) – led by David Mohyuddin KC – cases concerning principles for award of security for costs in relation to companies in liquidation and committal for breach of freezing injunctions
Montpellier Estates Limited v Leeds City Council [2013] EWHC 166 QB – assisting generally in the preparation of and dealing with various interlocutory hearings in multi-million pound deceit claim made against the Council
Autofocus Limited/Accident Exchange Limited litigation (2012-13) – assisting in the appeals in numerous cases arising from the fraudulent manufacturing of “expert” evidence in credit hire cases
Litigation arising from the Buncefield Oil depot disaster (2008) – assisting a national law firm in relation to an action against the manufacturer of safety devices at the depot
