Fraud, insolvency & asset recovery

When conversation turns into conflict, you need a legal team with the experience and expertise to protect your interests and achieve swift, commercially realistic results in the most cost efficient and risk free manner possible.

Clients ranging from individuals and entrepreneurs to corporations and multi-national organisations trust our commercial litigation lawyers, based in Kent, to deliver results for them in even the most complex of cases. We make it a point to get to know our clients, to understand their objectives thoroughly, provide clear advice and commercially minded recommendations in plain English, and to make ourselves available whenever and wherever our clients need us.

Our commercial litigation lawyers specialise in helping settle disputes using mediation, arbitration and other ADR approaches, but are equally skilled and experienced in fighting our clients’ corner in court where necessary. We can also offer risk management and litigation avoidance advice, to help stop issues developing into full disputes.

Our expert team of Fraud, Insolvency and Asset Recovery (FIAR) lawyers can advise on a wide range of enforcement and defence related work.

We are experienced in advising owner-managed and larger businesses / corporate groups, company directors, shareholders, trustees, investors, individuals and insolvency practitioners on FIAR cases.

We advise on insolvency options and risks for directors. We assist creditors to achieve the maximum recovery from debtors who may be facing insolvency. This includes the recovery of any goods protected by retention of title clauses, and dealing with urgent ancillary supply chain issues, or from business owners, directors, or connected parties who may have (or are alleged to have) misappropriated, or helped to misappropriate, a debtor’s money or assets.

We can also assist insolvency practitioners with investigations, tracing, recovery of book-debts and realisation of assets.

Our FIAR team regularly helps to bring, or defend, claims involving civil or commercial fraud, and issues arising from real estate transactions, agreements or lending, including the appointment of receivers to protect lender interests.

We have expertise in:

• Preparing and serving statutory demands, advising on and making applications to set aside statutory demands, or injunctions to restrain the presentation of a winding-up petition
• The issue and defence of winding-up and bankruptcy petitions
• Applications arising under Sections 127, 212, 214, 216 and 238 of the Insolvency Act 1986 (validation orders, directors’ misfeasance, wrongful trading, re-use of company names and transactions at an undervalue etc)
• Pursuing and defending claims arising from Part 23 of the Companies Act 2006 (unlawful distribution of dividends)
• Applications to annul bankruptcy orders
• Claims that involve allegations of dishonesty and deceit, conspiracy, misfeasance, and misrepresentation
• The misappropriation or concealment of assets or money
• Breaches of trust or fiduciary duty
• Claims against third parties who have assisted or benefitted from fraud or breach of trust / fiduciary duty (such as for knowing assistance, knowing receipt, or conspiracy)
• Claims against company directors that can pierce the corporate veil
• Injunctions to obtain information, or to prevent the transfer or dissipation of assets
• Claims relating to payment fraud, including authorised push payment scams, misdirected or unauthorised payments
• Acting on behalf of directors defending disqualification proceedings
• Acting for lenders to enforce their security
• Considering the impact of insolvency on commercial fraud and assisting insolvency practitioners to unravel transactions designed to defraud creditors.

Our team can help with all stages of advice and representation, from the initial advice on becoming aware of an issue, tracing, acting to obtain urgent freezing injunctions, search and disclosure orders, through to preparation for trial and enforcement.