Steven Fennell

Call 2014

fennell@exchangechambers.co.uk

"Steven is very senior and very experienced. He was an insolvency solicitor so he has a ridiculously large technical arsenal. His advocacy is always clear and considered."

Chambers and Partners 2025
Photo of Steven Fennell

Insolvency

Steven has extensive experience of insolvency practice and litigation.  He qualified as an insolvency practitioner in 1999 and held an insolvency licence from 2000 until his transfer to the Bar in 2014.  Steven was the moderator of the JIEB Administrations, Company Voluntary Arrangements and Receiverships paper from 2008 to 2017.

His practice extends to:

  • Asset recovery, including cross-border litigation
  • Corporate insolvency litigation, including wrongful trading, fraudulent trading, misfeasance, preferences and transactions at undervalue
  • Personal insolvency litigation, including disputes as to the bankrupt’s ownership of property, asset recovery, private examinations and challenges to the approval of voluntary arrangements
  • Applications to the court to remove insolvency practitioners from appointments
  • Contested remuneration applications
  • Advisory work and litigation in relation to insolvent professional practices
  • Defending insolvency practitioners in regulatory proceedings brought by their professional bodies
  • Missing trader and similar fraud claims involving HMRC, including provisional liquidations
  • Non-contentious advisory work in relation to corporate and insolvency transactions
  • Defending directors’ disqualification actions

During his time as a solicitor, Steven’s practice was exclusively claimant based, but since coming to the bar he undertakes a mix of claimant and defendant work.

Insolvency Cases

AS A BARRISTER:

MTA Personal Injury Solicitors LLP v Wiseglass [2024[ EWHC 2208 (Ch) (contested remuneration application)

Gudmundsson v Lin [2024] EWHC 1576 (Fam), Reid Roberts v Lin [2024] EWHC 759 (Ch) (Validity of electronic signatures, validity of agreements between divorcing spouses, possession and sale of matrimonial home where exceptional circumstances are found)

Fish v Sky Apartments 2018 Ltd [2022] EWHC 763 (Ch); Re Sky Building Ltd [2020] EWHC 3139 (Ch) (Equitable liens arising from off-plan sales; administration)

Re JDK Construction Ltd [2024] EWCA Civ 934 (Court of Appeal decision on the effect of fraudulent alterations to a company’s register of members)

Re Brookmann Home Ltd [2021] EWHC 2610 (Ch) – (directors’ misfeasance)

Re Wolf International Ltd [2021] EWHC 500 (Ch) – (disputed administration appointment)

Re Ide [2020] EWCA Civ 1469 (limitation periods in insolvency litigation)

Re Robinson [2020] EWHC 2928 (Ch) – (trustee in bankrupt’s powers to trade the bankrupt’s business)

Lin v Gudmundsson [2021] EWHC 820 (Ch) (wife’s application to annul husband’s bankruptcy following creditor’s petition)

Sky Building Limited v HMRC and Others [2020] EWHC 3139 (Ch) (application to sell fixed charge assets under para 71 of Sch B1 to the Insolvency Act 1986)

HH Aluminium & Building Products Ltd v Bell [2020] EWCA Civ 1469 (limitation and service in Insolvency Act litigation)

Leopard v Robinson [2020] EWHC 2928 (Ch) (powers of a trustee in bankruptcy to trade on)

Nosnehpetsj Limited v Watersheds Capital Partners Limited [2020] EWHC 1938 (Ch) (misfeasance in relation to share transfers)

Re North Point Global Ltd [2020] EWHC 1648 (Ch) (admissibility of Insolvency Act claims in CVAs)

Erlam v Rahman [2016] EWHC 111 (Ch) (sham transactions and beneficial interests in relation to charging orders and judgment debts)

Zelouf v Khanna [2016] EWHC 205 (Ch) (grounds for challenging the approval of IVAs).

Barclays Bank plc v Sharma and others [2015] EWHC 2806 (Ch) (acted for petition in application to restore company to the register to allow independent review of its administration)

Royal Bank of Scotland plc v McCarthy [2015] EWHC 3626 (QB) (defence of procuring a breach of contract in the context of a claim for repayment of a professional practice loan)