David joined the firm as Partner in the Dispute Resolution Department in Birmingham.
David started his career in London, at a City firm and has worked at national and large regional firms.
Recent Department Work
David acts for PLC’s, owner managed businesses and high net worth individuals. He specialises in commercial dispute resolution, including commercial contracts; negligence; director/shareholder/partner disputes; contentious insolvency; statutory demands and debt recovery; all enforcement proceedings; and pre-emptive remedies including applications for pre-action disclosure and injunctions.
Examples of recent cases
- Appearing in the County Court for a payroll manager and his employer, a nationwide security company, to show cause why orders for a fine and /or imprisonment should not be made.
- Advising a company providing services for the joining of cables to the wind turbines of a Scottish utilities company; and advising the company’s insurers as to whether the company’s claim for the costs of its defence was covered under a Management Liability Policy.
- Advising a company supplying wedding services during lockdown; and considering the guidance of the Competition & Markets Authority.
- Acting for an internationally renowned DJ and others in defending a passing off action (in IPEC) involving the production of an international music festival in Greece.
- Acting for two of three partners in a farming partnership dispute seeking to buy out the third partner.
- Advising a global security company upon the termination of a £7M contract with a leading supermarket in the UK.
- Acting for Europe’s leading distributor of paper in a dispute with a claim for consequential losses arising from a broken print press.
- Acting for the remaining partners of a doctors’ surgery in the expulsion of an under-performing partner.
- Resolving an Inheritance Act claim by mediation.
- Acting for a retired couple in their appeal against an assessment of tax by HMRC in the Upper Tier Tax Tribunal; issuing protective judicial review proceedings; and acting in subsequent professional negligence proceedings against financial advisors.
- Acting for a firm of accountants in satellite litigation from the K2 Tax Shelter.
- Advising a global company which manufactures commercial and domestic spray washing systems upon misrepresentation and breach of a marketing contract for the provision of services at Fan Zones in Nigeria and Tunisia during the football World Cup in 2018.
- Setting aside a statutory demand served upon a company providing home care support services virtually exclusively to Mid-Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire County Council.
- Assisting the Partner and fiancé of a notorious criminal in her action against the police to recover half of the business and her personal assets wrongly seized by the police.
- Acting for an NHS trust in a dispute arising from the supply of an electronic rostering system.
- Acting for a company supplying component parts to F1 Teams in an action for breach of contract for the supply of a £2M component testing rig.
- Acting for Geneva based trustees in defending a £20M breach of trust action.
- Acting for the life tenant of an offshore trust to secure a £3.85M re-float of the trust following the settlement of a breach of trust action against the trustees.
Reported cases
- J S Bloor (Measham) Limited – v – Mr E M Calcott, The Times December 2000-established that conduct could defeat a statutory tenancy by way of proprietary estoppel.
- First National Bank -v- Achampong [2003] EWCA civ 487-O’Brien principles and Etridge Guidelines: Bank was on notice of undue influence even though undue influence exercised by surety on co-surety.
- Innovation Event Management Limited-v-Unity in the Sun Limited and others [2019] EWHC 2138 (IPEC) the words, “in the sun” were descriptive and generic so the claimant could not claim any goodwill in them.
Qualifications & Memberships
Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales.
When his company subscribed to the Legal 500 in 2019, David was a Recognised Solicitor in the practice areas of general commercial litigation, intellectual property, and contentious probate.
David is a member of The Law Society of England and Wales-admitted October 1990.
Outside interests
David enjoys most sports. He is a lifelong suffering Leeds United fan.
David is also an enthusiastic golfer.
He enjoys travelling, walking his daughter’s dog and watching films and TV dramas.