Related Dispute Resolution Case Studies

Nicola acted for an industrial kitchen supplier who had not been paid by their customer for the installation of Kitchen equipment. This involved reaching a settlement at an early stage, before a claim was issued, thereby avoiding the cost of issuing legal proceedings.

Nicola represented an accountancy firm for a breach of contract claim, where their client had not paid them for work which they had undertaken. This included advising on the merits of their claim and quickly and successfully negotiating a settlement agreement.  This enabled the claim to be discontinued without the reverting to costly litigation.

Nicola Muir works within the Property Litigation team when they act for Landlords of Assured Shorthold Tenancies. This involves recovering possession of the property and/or rental arrears by issuing notices to the tenant and, where necessary, proceeding through county court actions.

Representing a major UK fresh food company in defending against an aggressive and intrusive TV exposé. Acting on behalf of the company in relation to the legal issues involved, the OFCOM Code and advising on potential breaches of bio security. This was an extremely time sensitive, high profile matter with a requirement to protect against immense commercial damage to the company

Advising sole trader clients against international franchising networks in defending an individual’s right to independently operate a small non specialist business having not renewed a franchise contract. This reported case had significant implications on the franchising world although ultimately it was decided in favour of the franchisor leaving open a further challenge in the Courts to determine issues about the enforceability of restrictive covenants with limited time scopes in non specialist industries.

Representing a British company in a breach of contract claim. Fleur Turrington's client had undertaken substantial engineering work out of the EU, for an opponent and the opponent had failed to settle the invoices.

Her client was a small local business and therefore it was important to keep costs proportionate throughout the claim and to ensure that the company’s good reputation remained intact.

The Opponent was a German based company so there were issues of a jurisdictional nature and an Application to the High Court for service out of the jurisdiction was required.

The Contract dictated that the dispute should be dealt with by way of Arbitration. The opponent from the start strongly defended the claim and issued a substantial Counterclaim against Fleur's client. The Court’s permission was obtained to serve the Arbitration Claim Form out of the jurisdiction and we were successful in the arbitration hearing with the Counterclaim being dismissed in its entirety by the Arbitrator, with costs also being awarded to our client company.  Being a small business a negative arbitration award would have been catastrophic to the Company.

The skills of a specialist Counsel were used in relation to the jurisdictional issues and a very satisfactory outcome resulted.

 

 

 

Representing a national property management company. Fleur Turrington represented the company in respect of a large dilapidations claim that they were bringing against their former Tenants.  The matter was dealt with by way of Arbitration proceedings, with the assistance of a QC who was appointed as the arbitrator.

Arbitration was decided as the best route with respect to this particular dilapidations matter as it was more informal than County Court proceedings and was appropriate for the companies involved.

The Company was a large, national business. It was necessary to keep costs proportionate to the value of the claim but at the same to ensure that the company was portrayed in the appropriate manner to avoid any further claims of a similar nature being brought against it.

The use of a specialist Counsel and relevant experts were necessary for the smooth running of the arbitration.

Caroline advised a mainland China corporate client trying to recover a substantial sum of money owed by an English company. The client’s paperwork, as the trading relationship had gone back for several years, was substantial and in disarray. Caroline initially advised with the help of a forensic accountant what part of the claim we could successfully substantiate by doing an accounting procedure.

The client had already tried to resolve the dispute themselves prior to instructing us and unfortunately the wording of the agreement was sufficiently ambiguous to give the potential Defendant room for argument with the figures. Eventually, after much consideration, Caroline advised the client of the best claim to which the Defendant would have the least defence.  

The claim was issued and strenuously defended by the Defendants who raised all sorts of arguments as to why they should not have to pay the client, and in particular issuing a Counterclaim which extinguished the value of the claim. On the face of it the Counterclaim seemed genuine, but the fact that it conveniently extinguished the claim made Caroline suspicious.  

Accordingly we paid a lot of attention to the disclosure process whereby the parties exchanged documents. Unsurprisingly as it transpired the Defendants failed to disclose the documents pertaining to the Counterclaim and eventually we had to seek orders to get them produced.  

When they did produce them on the face of it they appeared to give credence to the Counterclaim but we made investigations as to the identity of the various European companies identified in the Counterclaim either by ourselves or through European Company search agents and process servers.  

Eventually we discovered that the Counterclaim was entirely fictitious. The company from where the breach of contract claim giving rise to the Counterclaim was supposed to emanate from did not even exist.  

In uncovering this and notifying the Defendant’s Solicitors that we intended to knock out their Counterclaim and seek judgment it became apparent that the “shadow” director who had responsibility for giving instructions in this matter to the solicitor had committed a wider fraud. Unfortunately it transpired that the Defendant’s company was insolvent. We obtained a Judgment for the full amount of the claim and costs on behalf of the Claimant.  

Whilst unfortunately to date there have been insufficient funds in the Defendant company to pay the Claimant, through proper analysis we knocked out the Defence and their Counterclaim, and obtained a full Judgment and saved the clients the cost of going to trial (which obviously would have been very expensive) and discovering the position after all the costs for the trial had been spent.

Caroline acted for a security company who provided guarding services to an individual’s property. Unfortunately whilst they were on site there was a burglary. The home owner was uninsured for a substantial amount of jewellery that was stolen, and claimed that the security company had been negligent in their guarding of the property. Police investigation into the robbery had been inconclusive and nobody had been detained nor had any of the goods been recovered. It seemed on analysis of the facts as if a member of the householder’s staff must have been involved in the robbery, and therefore the security company and the measures that they had on site could not have either prevented it or alerted them to it.

The property had been undergoing substantial restoration at the time and we eventually traced the site foreman who worked for the building company who was able to give invaluable evidence in a witness statement form, which indicated to us that we had a good chance of defending the claim. Our client’s insurers agreed that the evidence was strong and that they would back the client to go through a trial.  

A week before the trial the home owner decided not to pursue their claim for their losses and an agreement was reached as the cost of the proceedings.  

Accordingly going through judicious investigation the case settled before trial so the client did not have the costs and of the trial nor the risk of trial and successfully deflected the claim. The client also managed to avoid unfortunate publicity.