Fraud and Insolvency
Specialist legal advice in all areas of fraud and insolvency
Our fraud and insolvency group are experienced commercial litigators with a particular focus on dealing with high value, cross border matters where there is an overlap between fraud and insolvency. Our expertise spans a wide range of sectors and industries, as well as our knowledge of global jurisdictions and how to ensure the best possible result for our clients.
What we do in Fraud and Insolvency
Drawing on our in-depth knowledge as experienced commercial litigators and having acted both for and against insolvency practitioners in the UK and abroad, including in our BVI office, we are able to advise clients on issues such as:
- Fraud – whether the clients are the victims of, affected by or wrongly accused of fraud.
- Insolvency – advising clients on their rights and remedies against insolvent counterparties around the world, including advising on and applying for insolvency practitioners to be appointed to best represent their position and chances of recovery and advising insolvency practitioners on the full spectrum of insolvency matters (including administration, provisional liquidation, liquidation, clawback claims and claims against directors).
- Asset recovery – tracing assets across the globe and obtaining and enforcing judgments against them.
- Offshore trust litigation – advising trustees, protectors, settlors and beneficiaries on contentious trust disputes, including those often associated with fraud or breach of trust claims.
Our experience in Fraud and Insolvency
We are regularly involved in high value, cross border fraud and insolvency litigation and offshore trust disputes. Some examples of our recent work in this area are as follows:
- Acting for the Trustees of the insolvent Estate of Boris Berezovsky. This is an ongoing multi-faceted and largely confidential matter with a very high profile.
- Acting for the Protector of two Caribbean Trusts in defending those Trusts in proceedings brought by the former Trustee to invalidate them.
- Acting for a BVI company in proceedings brought in the Commercial Court in England by the Republic of Djibouti against a former presidential candidate for fraud and other claims. Our client is held in a Singaporean Trust and is the ultimate owner of a substantial strategic asset in Djibouti.
- Acting for the Joint Liquidators of Pioneer Freight Futures Limited, a BVI company which traded in forward freight agreements that was placed into provisional liquidation (and then liquidation) in both the BVI and England and Wales in December 2009 with debts of around US$500 million.
- We are acting in the UK for Quantuma LLP and KrysGlobal BVI as joint liquidators of various BVI companies in relation to litigation before the English Commercial Court involving multiple parties with overlapping proprietary claims to assets including shares in the companies over which the joint liquidators were appointed.
- We acted for two BVI companies and two individuals in a global fraud claim relating to allegations of manipulating the international fertilizer market. The dispute involving a number of trust entities and beneficiaries. The jurisdiction challenge proceeded all the way to the Privy Council in London. This case is now the benchmark for BVI jurisdictional based challenges.
- Advised a large UAE group with offices in Dubai and Singapore, who traded in agricultural products worldwide, on its voluntary liquidation under s179 Insolvency Act 2003.
