Adam Sher

Much of Adam’s practice is banking/finance related, covering the full spectrum from investment banking and investment management to private and retail banking, with previous and present clients including VTB Capital, Credit Suisse, Barclays, Bank of Scotland, NatWest / The Royal Bank of Scotland, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, CA-CIB (formerly Calyon), Julius Baer, HSH Nordbank, ING Bank, CaixaBank and Nomura. Adam was Chambers & Partners ‘Banking Junior of the Year’ in 2017 (having also been nominated for that award in 2016). He has particularly deep experience of LIBOR/EURIBOR related claims, having acted in most of the leading civil cases in that area.

Notable Banking & Finance Cases

FDIC-R v Barclays, NatWest Markets & Ors

Instructed (with Robert O’Donoghue KC) by NatWest in connection with these competition law proceedings brought by an arm of the US Government as receiver for 39 failed banks in connection with LIBOR manipulation.

Leeds City Council & Ors v Barclays Bank

Acting with Adrian Beltrami KC for Barclays in defending LIBOR-manipulation based misrepresentation claims brought by a number of local authorities who had entered into long term lending with Barclays. Barclays succeeded in a strike-out application against the local authorities on the grounds that they had not been aware of the implied representations relied upon.

Marme Inversiones v RBS, HSH, BayernLB, ING & La Caixa

Acting (with Tim Howe KC) for four banks in successfully defending claims for rescission and damages arising from alleged EURIBOR manipulation.

Property Alliance Group v RBS

Instructed for RBS throughout (led at various times by David Railton KC, David Foxton QC and then Richard Handyside KC and Paul Sinclair KC) these important financial List proceedings, which resulted nine interlocutory judgments (including multiple decisions relating to legal professional privilege), a 10-week trial before Asplin J and seven-day appeal before the Court of Appeal, where the dismissal of all claims against RBS was upheld. ([2016] EWHC 3342 (Ch), [2018] EWCA Civ 355, [2018] 1 WLR 3529).

Deutsche Bank v Unitech

Acting (with a series of leaders, Mark Hapgood QC, Tim Howe KC and Sonia Tolaney KC) for DB in this long-running litigation including (among others) claims arising relating to LIBOR manipulation. The case went twice to the Court of Appeal on interlocutory claims before concluding with a judgment after trial in DB’s favour in 2019.

Italian Swaps litigation

Acting, over the past 10 years, in numerous cases arising out of derivative transactions entered into between international banks (including in particular Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Nomura International) and various Italian local authorities including Merrill Lynch v Verona and Merrill Lynch v Florence.

Barclays v Borkhatria

Acting (as sole counsel) for Barclays in a successful summary judgment application in relation to a claim on a personal guarantee raising wide-ranging issues including economic duress, breaches of duties of disclosure in the context of guarantees and misrepresentation.

WW Property Investments v NatWest

Acting (with Andrew Mitchell KC) for NatWest, successfully striking out a case that the bank owed a duty of care to a customer taking part on the Interest Rate Hedging Review programme. The decision was upheld by the Court of Appeal in a conjoined appeal (with CGL v RBS).

Stuart Wall v RBS

Instructed (with Andrew Mitchell KC, Jeremy Goldring KC, James Cutress KC, Tamara Oppenheimer KC and Laurie Brock) for RBS to defend a £700 million claim concerning an abortive CMBS transaction and involving allegations concerning RBS’s GRG division and LIBOR manipulation. The case (one of The Lawyer’s ‘Top 20 Cases of 2017’) settled shortly before a 12-week trial in 2017.