UK & International Finance Litigation

UK & International Finance Litigation

Parties involved in finance-related disputes have long relied on the strengths—experience, independence and reliability—of English courts to settle high-value global financial services disputes.

Our lawyers in London, Dubai and Hong Kong handle the full spectrum of finance-related disputes on behalf of some of the world’s leading banks, investment funds, creditors and private equity investors.

We are known for our involvement in high-value, sophisticated and eye-catching cross-border restructuring & insolvency disputes. This includes acting on some of the highest profile contested schemes of arrangements and restructuring plans.

Complementing our global investor-side offering, we have significant experience in cross-border disputes related to a broad spectrum of debt- and equity-linked asset classes and sophisticated investment approaches, such as special situations on the credit side and event-driven disputes and shareholder activism on the equity side. We also have great credentials in litigation finance, having advised funds on a range of ad hoc and more structured litigation funding for well over a decade.

Clients quoted in Chambers UK 2024 (Banking and Litigation) regarding the practice commented, “They are always in control and one step ahead.”

In The Legal 500 UK 2024 (Dispute Resolution-Banking Litigation: Investment & Retail), a client remarked that we're “Technically excellent, commercially savvy, and a great team to work with at all levels - quality throughout. I could not recommend them more highly.”

Services In-Depth

Investment Fund/Private Equity Disputes

We frequently advise investment fund clients on the full range of equity investment disputes, including those related to misleading offering documents, general partner and limited partner disputes, boardroom deadlock, shareholder and joint venture (JV) disputes and shareholder activism.

Creditor Litigation

Our market-leading cross-border litigation practice handles a wide range of credit investor disputes, in particular those in the distressed debt space, sovereign (and quasi-sovereign) disputes—including those in Argentina, Iceland, Greece, Africa and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)—and intra-creditor disputes over interpretation of complex finance documents.

Contentious Restructuring

Working seamlessly with the firm’s market-leading restructuring transactional practice, we ensure that our investment fund clients are in a position to enforce rights, pursue remedies and protect their interests in the context of high-value, complex cross-border restructurings.

Litigation Finance

The firm is well known for advising investment funds on litigation financing opportunities, including structuring bespoke financing and security arrangements for individual asset recovery investments, and designing co-investment, portfolio funding and other innovative structures.

Civil Fraud

Our team conducts high-value, complex cross-border litigation and arbitration and has particular experience pursuing and defending against allegations of misconduct, fraud and breach of fiduciary duty. Our London office has strength in the energy sector and is highly familiar with the Russian and the CIS markets. We are skilled in obtaining and resisting mandatory and prohibitive injunctions, international and domestic freezing injunctions and anti-suit proceedings in support of domestic litigation and arbitration.

Asset Preservation & Tracing

Our team has the ability to identify and trace assets held by a defendant and to enforce against them. We often apply for and obtain disclosure and protection orders such as the Norwich Pharmaceutical orders and their equivalents in other jurisdictions, worldwide freezing orders against defendants and associated alleged violators and asset disclosure orders requiring defendants to identify all assets on pain of committal.

Representative Matters

Advising Veon Holdings BV on a scheme of arrangement in respect of over $1 billion of debt, including resisting a challenge to the scheme brought by certain creditors. This scheme was sanctioned in January 2023.
Advising Elliott Advisers on its groundbreaking judicial review of the unprecedented decision by the London Metal Exchange to retrospectively cancel hundreds of millions of dollars of nickel trades in March 2022. This matter will soon go to trial.
Advising an ad hoc group of creditors, comprising some of the world’s largest hedge funds, in a challenge to the restructuring plan proposed by Adler Group, the substantial listed German real estate business. This matter will soon go to trial.

Advising some of the world’s largest asset managers in their capacity as holders of senior secured notes issued by Galapagos SA, a German manufacturing business, which went through a highly complex and contentious restructuring.
Advising the noteholders to Royal Imtech NV (Imtech). Imtech was a European technical services provider that filed for bankruptcy in the Netherlands, which is the largest ever bankruptcy in the Netherlands. We advise the noteholders on a range of litigation issues arising out of the situation.
Advising an ad hoc group of creditors of Premier Oil, a leading independent U.K. oil company with worldwide oil and gas interests, in the contentious aspects of a high-profile and complex restructuring. We advised our clients on the response to a challenge to the proposed restructuring from another significant stakeholder, which included defending an injunction application, and opposing the challenge to the sanctioning of a proposed scheme of arrangement resulting in several days of hearing in the Scottish court. The injunction and the challenge to the scheme were rejected in their entirety in a landmark judgment, which now stands as authority for a number of previously untested points in the context of schemes of arrangement.
Successfully defended Mr. Foresman, a senior bank executive, in defense of litigation arising from an investment in a consortium bidding for assets in the Yukos insolvency. This was rated as one of the top 20 cases before the English Commercial Court in 2019.
Advising the joint administrators of African Minerals Limited (AML). AML was a U.K. listed company that went into administration with debts of approximately $1 billion. We have advised the administrators throughout on multiple litigation issues, including a $200-million complex intercompany accounting claim in the English High Court and a novel scheme of arrangement effecting the transfer of a complex outbound claim to a creditor-controlled vehicle.
Advising Oceanwood Capital Management on multiple sets of proceedings arising out of the financial restructuring of the Norske Skog group, a Norwegian-headquartered paper business with approximately €1 billion of debt. The restructuring was very high profile, and involved litigation in both London and New York, which attracted significant media attention.
Advised Fairhold Securitisation Limited on the complex litigation issues arising in the context of the restructuring of the company’s liabilities, including obtaining expedited declaratory and injunctive relief from the English High Court.

Advising some of the world’s largest asset managers in their capacity as holders of senior secured notes issued by Galapagos SA, a German manufacturing business, which went through a highly complex and contentious restructuring.
Advising the noteholders to Royal Imtech NV (Imtech). Imtech was a European technical services provider that filed for bankruptcy in the Netherlands, which is the largest ever bankruptcy in the Netherlands. We advise the noteholders on a range of litigation issues arising out of the situation.
Advising an ad hoc group of creditors of Premier Oil, a leading independent U.K. oil company with worldwide oil and gas interests, in the contentious aspects of a high-profile and complex restructuring. We advised our clients on the response to a challenge to the proposed restructuring from another significant stakeholder, which included defending an injunction application, and opposing the challenge to the sanctioning of a proposed scheme of arrangement resulting in several days of hearing in the Scottish court. The injunction and the challenge to the scheme were rejected in their entirety in a landmark judgment, which now stands as authority for a number of previously untested points in the context of schemes of arrangement.
Successfully defended Mr. Foresman, a senior bank executive, in defense of litigation arising from an investment in a consortium bidding for assets in the Yukos insolvency. This was rated as one of the top 20 cases before the English Commercial Court in 2019.
Advising the joint administrators of African Minerals Limited (AML). AML was a U.K. listed company that went into administration with debts of approximately $1 billion. We have advised the administrators throughout on multiple litigation issues, including a $200-million complex intercompany accounting claim in the English High Court and a novel scheme of arrangement effecting the transfer of a complex outbound claim to a creditor-controlled vehicle.
Advising Oceanwood Capital Management on multiple sets of proceedings arising out of the financial restructuring of the Norske Skog group, a Norwegian-headquartered paper business with approximately €1 billion of debt. The restructuring was very high profile, and involved litigation in both London and New York, which attracted significant media attention.
Advised Fairhold Securitisation Limited on the complex litigation issues arising in the context of the restructuring of the company’s liabilities, including obtaining expedited declaratory and injunctive relief from the English High Court.