Professional Negligence
Professional negligence is a core area of expertise at Fountain Court. Members of Chambers act and advise regularly over the whole range of professional advisers, including claims against accountants and auditors, actuaries, solicitors, barristers, insurance brokers, banks, valuers and surveyors, financial advisers, trustees and stockbrokers.
Members have been involved in many of the leading cases in this field including Caparo v Dickman (in which all counsel involved were from Fountain Court) and Henderson v Merrett. Other recent House of Lords cases in which members have acted include cases on advocates' immunity (Hall v Simons), damages for distress (Farley v Skinner), the vicarious liability of partners for the fraud of a co-partner (Dubai Aluminium v Salaam), the fiduciary duties of solicitors (Hilton v Barker Booth) and the Limitation Act (Law Society v Sephton).
Fountain Court has played, and continues to play, a major role in large-scale recent litigation relating to various professions. Examples include Independent Insurance v Watson Wyatt (actuaries), the claims by Formula One teams against their City firms of solicitors, Stone & Rolls v Moore Stephens (auditors), the JDS enquiry into the auditing of Equitable Life, The Accident Group litiation (solicitors), and the Stax litigation (financial advisers).
Mark Simpson QC is the General Editor of the three volume looseleaf Professional Negligence and Liability (LLP), which is the most comprehensive practitioner work in this field of law, to which five other members contribute. He is also associate Editor of Tottel's Professional Negligence and chairs the annual IBC conference on professional liability at which various members of chambers have spoken. Three members co-author the chapter on professional negligence in Bullen & Leake & Jacob’s Precedents of Pleadings (16th edition).