Insolvency
Steven has extensive experience of insolvency practice and litigation. He qualified as an insolvency practitioner in 1999 and held an insolvency licence from 2000 until his transfer to the Bar in 2014. Steven was the moderator of the JIEB Administrations, Company Voluntary Arrangements and Receiverships paper from 2008 to 2017. Steven contributes chapters to Tolleys Insolvency Law and Practice and has published numerous articles on insolvency.
His practice extends to:
- Asset recovery, including cross-border litigation
- Corporate insolvency litigation, including wrongful trading, fraudulent trading, misfeasance, preferences and transactions at undervalue
- Personal insolvency litigation, including disputes as to the bankrupt’s ownership of property, asset recovery, private examinations and challenges to the approval of voluntary arrangements
- Applications to the court to remove insolvency practitioners from appointments
- Advisory work and litigation in relation to insolvent professional practices
- Defending insolvency practitioners in regulatory proceedings brought by their professional bodies
- Missing trader and similar fraud claims involving HMRC, including provisional liquidations
- Non-contentious advisory work in relation to corporate and insolvency transactions
- Defending directors’ disqualification actions
Insolvency Cases
AS A BARRISTER:
Lin v Gudmundsson [2021] EWHC 820 (Ch) (wife’s application to annul husband’s bankruptcy following creditor’s petition)
Sky Building Limited v HMRC and Others [2020] EWHC 3139 (Ch) (application to sell fixed charge assets under para 71 of Sch B1 to the Insolvency Act 1986)
HH Aluminium & Building Products Ltd v Bell [2020] EWCA Civ 1469 (limitation and service in Insolvency Act litigation)
Leopard v Robinson [2020] EWHC 2928 (Ch) (powers of a trustee in bankruptcy to trade on)
Nosnehpetsj Limited v Watersheds Capital Partners Limited [2020] EWHC 1938 (Ch) (misfeasance in relation to share transfers)
Re North Point Global Ltd [2020] EWHC 1648 (Ch) (admissibility of Insolvency Act claims in CVAs)
Erlam v Rahman [2016] EWHC 111 (Ch) (sham transactions and beneficial interests in relation to charging orders and judgment debts)
Zelouf v Khanna [2016] EWHC 205 (Ch) (grounds for challenging the approval of IVAs).
Barclays Bank plc v Sharma and others [2015] EWHC 2806 (Ch) (acted for petition in application to restore company to the register to allow independent review of its administration)
Royal Bank of Scotland plc v McCarthy [2015] EWHC 3626 (QB) (defence of procuring a breach of contract in the context of a claim for repayment of a professional practice loan)
AS A SOLICITOR:
HMRC v SED Essex Limited [2013] EWHC 1583(Ch) (acting for HMRC in relation to the provisional liquidation of a company involved in VAT and alcohol fraud)
Wade v Poppleton & Appleby [2003] EWHC 3159 (professional negligence and breach of duty claim against insolvency practitioners)
