Company Law and Insolvency
Members of Fountain Court Chambers have long experience of advising on both company law and insolvency issues, whether arising in the course of commercial litigation or of a more specialist nature. In relation to company law, members have advised in the context of a number of substantial and high profile project finance and financial restructuring exercises, for example, in relation to the purchase of British Vita by TPG, the 2012 Olympic Games, the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, and various company privatisations. Two members of chambers are established specialist practitioners in Company Law and a number of other members are able to offer expertise in such disputes. Members are also the authors of Chapter 23 on the Liability of Directors & Officers, in Simpson, Professional Negligence & Liability (2005, LLP) and Directors’ and Officers’ Liability (2008).
Members’ expertise in company law includes:
Directors’ duties including claims against directors and a number of director disqualification trials; recent cases include Re Finelist plc, Equitable Life, Domoney v Godinho, Secretary of State v Deverell and Re Barings (No 2)
Shareholders’ rights including advice on the conduct of meetings, section 459 unfair prejudice petitions and derivative actions where inter-shareholder or shareholder-company relationships have broken down (for example, Hough v Hardcastle, Monnington v Easier plc, Re a Company (No. 5669 of 1998) and the BSkyB litigation arising out of the merger of BSB and Sky TV
Mergers & Acquisitions
Warranty and negligence claims in particular, both warranty (and other) claims under share-sale agreements and claims against professional advisers involved in a transaction; recent cases include acting for Goldman Sachs in setting aside an injunction obtained by Mannesmann to restrain it from acting for Vodafone in the takeover battle, for an English private bank in a dispute with a European bank over the sale of an off-shore subsidiary, for the administrators of British & Commonwealth in their claim against BZW and others, arising out of British & Commonwealth's purchase of Atlantic Computers
Takeover Regulation members have wide experience of judicial review of the decisions of all manner of regulatory authorities including the application of the City Code and the Yellow Book; cases include Mid Kent Holdings Plc v General Utilities and R. v Panel on Takeovers and Mergers, ex p. Fayed.
Our Publications in this Practice Area
- Company, Investment & Insolvency Offences and Revenue & Social Security section
- The Law of Assignment
Our People in this Practice Area
- Anthony Boswood QC
- Michael Brindle QC
- Stephen Moriarty QC
- Michael McLaren QC
- Philip Brook Smith QC
- Raymond Cox QC
- Charles Béar QC
- Timothy Howe QC
- Michael Green QC
- Richard Handyside QC
- Akhil Shah QC
- Marcus Smith QC
- Andrew Mitchell QC
- Bridget Lucas
- Adam Tolley
- Paul Sinclair
- Patrick Goodall
- Deepak Nambisan
- Giles Wheeler
- James Cutress
- Nik Yeo
- Chloe Carpenter
- James McClelland
- Simon Atrill
- James Duffy