Andrew has a reputation for being a leading chancery commercial senior junior, specialising particularly in disputes relating to the interpretation or breach of most types of commercial contract, personal guarantees, mortgage and trust deeds and joint venture agreements (usually involving the subject-matter of a construction and property dispute), claims for breach of trust, fiduciary duty and directors’ duties together with shareholders’ disputes and cases involving commercial fraud including freezing injunctions and asset recovery. Andrew is frequently instructed on matters involving cross-border enforcement of judgments and anti-suit injunctions. Frequently, such claims give rise to issues of insolvency and claims for misfeasance and preferences arise, such as in Power v Hodges [2015] EWHC 2983 (Ch), [2016] ETMR 6.
Andrew has been instructed on various cases involving mis-selling of financial investments and pension products (such as group actions involving Keydata, Arch Cru, Sterling Mortimer and Harlequin); some of which have involved judicial review applications and Group Litigation Orders and cross-border claims. Andrew was instructed on the judicial review of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme’s decision to levy £32 million on independent financial advisers, which is reported as R (on the application of ABS Financial Planning Ltd and others) v Financial Services Compensation Scheme Ltd reported at [2012] 2 BCLC 267 and more recently in a claim against the Financial Ombudsman Service in relation to a decision to decline jurisdiction in a pension review claim.
Andrew has extensive experience of foreign jurisdictions and has worked, among others, with lawyers in the Bahamas, Belgium, Bermuda, Botswana, Canada, China, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Northern Ireland, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Scotland, Spain, the UAE and USA. Andrew was a mentor on the Lord Chancellor’s Training Scheme for Chinese Lawyers and in 2011 formed part of the Bar Council’s official delegation to China. Andrew has been called to the Bar of England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar and is a registered practitioner at the DIFC Courts.
Andrew is regularly instructed in matters concerning breach of trust and fiduciary duties and joint ventures and disputes between company directors and co-adventurers involving claims for breach of fiduciary and directors’ duties. Reported cases include Miller v Stonier [2015] EWHC 2796 (Ch) before Newey J (as he then was), which involved allegations that a company director owed a fiduciary duty to his business partner (as opposed to the joint venture company), Newey J held that the case had none of the particular and special features necessary for fiduciary duties to arise between commercial co-venturers and Power v Hodges [2016] BPIR 162 in which misfeasance and wrongful trading claims and a contested committal for contempt made against company directors by a Liquidator for £9.5M.
Frequently, Andrew is instructed on contested disclosure applications, involving trusts and offshore accounts, such as Thursfield v Thursfield [2012] EWHC 3742 (Ch), which involved a contested application for a North Shore Ventures Order relating to a Bahamian trust.