BCL Solicitors LLP bolsters civil fraud practice with new hire

Robert is a specialist civil fraud litigator and barrister who is ranked in the leading directories and who has been a partner at Grosvenor Law in Mayfair and at City firm Howard Kennedy. Robert previously worked at BCL for a number of years until 2012, focussing on civil litigation, in particular civil fraud, commercial litigation and tax disputes, and has continued to work closely with BCL Solicitors over the intervening years.

Robert qualified as a barrister in 2003 and specialises in commercial litigation and arbitrations involving fraud, substantial contractual claims, shareholder disputes, trusts and asset tracing.  He has considerable experience of applying for all types of injunctions, including worldwide freezing orders.   His clients include companies, directors and high-net-worth individuals.

His recent cases involve:

• Nest Investments Holding Lebanon S.A.L. & others v Deloitte and Touche (M.E.): Acting for the claimants in a multimillion dollar claim against a Big Four accountancy firm in the courts of the Dubai International Financial Centre.
• Vald. Nielsen Holding A/S v Baldorino: Acting for claimants in fraud claims by Danish and Jersey shareholders for breaches of fiduciary duty by company directors.
• Acting in multimillion pound claims involving three jurisdictions brought by a company against its former CEO.
• Acting in two separate cases involving UK litigation arising out the Madoff frauds
• Acting in reported decisions on significant procedural matters including the scope of security for costs orders, variation of freezing orders and the amendment of claims.

Robert’s appointment bolsters BCL Solicitors’ civil fraud offering, which, in recent years, has seen the firm act in various high-profile matters, including representing individual professional trustees in connection with civil proceedings arising from the alleged diversion of over £450 million following one of the largest divorce awards in English legal history (reported case of Akhmedov v Akhmedova). In addition to acting in civil proceedings brought by the FCA which has resulted in important (reported) case law clarifying the scope of collateral use of documents obtained pursuant to requests for mutual legal assistance (FCA v Costis Papadimitrakopoulos).

Richard Sallybanks, Managing Partner at BCL Solicitors, said:

“The expansion of our civil fraud litigation practice is a significant strategic development for BCL. Matters on which we are acting often have both civil and criminal aspects, or at least potential civil aspects, and the bolstering of our civil fraud team allows us to provide a seamless service to clients where issues span both the criminal and civil regimes.

“We look forward to welcoming Robert back to the team and taking our civil fraud practice from strength to strength alongside our leading criminal fraud practice.”

Robert Lawrie, BCL Solicitors, said:

“I am excited to rejoin BCL and work with them to significantly grow the civil fraud and commercial litigation practice in the coming years. Clients often need help with both criminal and civil fraud issues; there is growing demand for providing complete coverage across both areas, and BCL will be ideally placed to provide it.”