Professional experience: 24 years’ experience advising and acting for a wide range of professionals, entities and their trustees and directors and Lloyd’s and Company Market Insurers including the lead and following markets and primary and excess layers involving both UK and international risks and advising such insurers on a range of coverage issues including aggregation and fraud.
Professional indemnity: particular expertise of claims concerning professionals in the investment sector including investment product providers, fund managers, administrators and stockbrokers, accountants, actuaries, auditors insurance brokers and solicitors.
Management liability: extensive experience of a range of directors’ and officers’ liability/trustee liability insurance claims including investigations by Regulatory Bodies and defences of claims including section 994 petitions encompassing a wide variety of insureds/directors and/or trustees ranging from charities and educational institutions to regulatory bodies to companies ranging from SMEs to AIM and FTSE listed companies and their subsidiaries domiciled in the UK and other jurisdictions. Extensive experience of advising Insurers on numerous coverage issues and acting as monitoring counsel in both the UK and overseas.
Commercial crime: advising insurers on coverage/monitoring claims.
Pensions and benefit services: acting for and advising occupational pension scheme advisers, administrators, actuaries and trustees, SIPP and SSAS providers.
Experience
Examples of experience include:
- Eurokey Recycling v Giles Insurance Brokers Ltd [2014] EWHC. Successfully defended a claim brought by a recycling company in the commercial court in which it claimed £16M in damages against Giles Insurance Brokers alleging that the brokers failed to arrange adequate insurance cover for its business, stock, plant and machinery.
- Grimm v Newman and Chantrey Vellacott. Successful defence of an accountant where the accountants were held not to have been negligent in the advice they gave to the claimant on the taxation consequences of a gift of investments.
- Acted for the trustees of a charity, the subject of an investigation by the Insolvency Service, in relation to alleged misappropriation of funds provided by public bodies. No further action taken.
- Acted for the D&O insurers of a financial institution in respect of an investigation by its regulator concerning the conduct of two former directors of the institution arising from the failure of the institution and its auditors to account correctly for interest rate swaps and related mortgages which gave rise to a significant prior year adjustment in the financial statements of the institution.
Mark Ratcliff and Simon Beckwith: “fight every inch of the way for their clients”
Legal 500
