FIRE Summer School: The Ultimate Insider’s Guide

Samuel works in our Insolvency and asset recovery department, specialising in complex, contentious and cross border insolvency. I have over 10 years’ experience in this area with significant time spent working offshore in the British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands.

I have enforced freezing orders/judgments and brought claims in various overseas jurisdictions including BVI, Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, PRC, CIS, Eastern Europe, South America and Caribbean regions.
My focus is on unwinding complex structures to uncover hidden assets and forming legal claims against the perpetrators, benefitting from my strong network of international professionals across our offshore businesses.
I have managed high profile, high value insolvency cases with a focus on both grand corruption and large-scale ponzi/investment schemes. Notable cases include a USD$200 million Brazilian grand corruption case, an Antiguan USD$7 billion ponzi scheme, and US and UK based investment scams.

I work closely with our forensic and investigations team and corporate intelligence unit to assist with our investigations and provide effective streamlined solutions.

Caroline acts for corporate and individual clients in relation to a variety of disputes involving breaches of contract and misrepresentations, civil fraud and asset tracing, allegations of bribery and corruption, regulatory and health & safety breaches, breaches of restrictive covenants, and Judicial Review Caroline has experience of litigating through the Courts domestically and internationally.

She is also, however, experienced in resolving disputes through arbitration, mediation and other alternative means of resolution. Caroline is currently part of the team defending a multi-billion dollar fraud claim in the Cayman Islands.

Nicola is a highly experienced commercial litigator who brings her pragmatic and tenacious approach to bear for high-net-worth individuals, legal and financial services professionals, corporates and hedge funds.

With experience acting across high-value civil fraud, financial services and trust litigation, Nicola has particular expertise in freezing orders, other interlocutory injunctive measures and anti-money laundering issues. She is a Solicitor-Advocate (Higher Courts Criminal and Civil Proceedings), and her dynamism is consistently recognised as a ‘real asset’ in complex cases.

Chambers and Partners

In ranking Nicola as a Star Individual for Fraud: Civil, Chambers and Partners comment: ‘Nicola is intellectually agile and a master for detail’. She is ‘one of the most effective fraud practitioners in the market’ and ‘she has a great strategic mind, is brilliantly insightful and is great to work with’.

Legal 500

‘The “truly excellent” group at Byrne and Partners LLP is led by the “articulate and fearsome” Nicola Boulton’

‘The department is headed by Nicola Boulton, who is described by clients as “a natural leader with unsurpassed knowledge of her field, with excellent judgment and an unerring ability to pick the right strategy”

Jane Colston's practice focuses on complex and high-value commercial banking, contract and tort disputes as well as company, shareholders and partnership disputes.

Jane has acted in numerous complex fraud cases and has extensive experience of forensic investigations, most of which have involved working with teams of investigators and accountants, and coordinating lawyers in multiple jurisdictions to trace and freeze assets. She has managed numerous cases involving freezing, search, disclosure, gagging and delivery up injunctions as well as breach of confidence claims. 

Tayyibah Arif is Counsel in Dechert’s financial restructuring group, advising clients on high-profile restructurings and formal insolvency procedures. Ms. Arif focuses her practice on representing distressed corporates, private equity funds, sponsors, bondholders, financial institutions and insolvency practitioners in domestic and cross-border restructuring matters, including out-of-court restructurings, distressed investing, formal restructuring and insolvency procedures.

Ms. Arif has also advised leading private equity funds and major corporates on a wide range of cross-border and domestic acquisitions, disposals and restructurings, initial public offerings, as well as general corporate and commercial matters.

An active member of the legal community, Ms. Arif is the recipient of the International Women’s Insolvency and Restructuring Confederation’s (IWIRC London) Be Inspired Award 2019 and was recently shortlisted as one of five women for the IWIRC International Rising Star Award 2021. She also received the Turnaround Management Association (TMA) Young Professional Award 2019, which honours the achievements of an individual working in turnaround and restructuring who demonstrates exceptional performance and career development with less than ten years’ industry service.

Stephen is a partner in the litigation and arbitration team and leads the global fraud team.

His practice focusses on international asset freezing and recovery cases, heavyweight commercial litigation and regulatory disputes and Stephen is particularly adept at drawing on the firm’s tax expertise in such cases to obtain a strategic advantage.

Stephen also often acts for family offices, successful families, entrepreneurs and their businesses on a broad range of commercial disputes and heads up our family office first group, which is an innovative approach to finding positive solutions for family conflicts.

Stephen regularly speaks at national and international conferences on a wide range of fraud and litigation topics.

Stephen is described by Chambers and Partners 2020 as a ‘superb lawyer’ and ‘‘an incredibly shrewd judge of the tactics of a case’.

Grant is an Associate Director in the insolvency and asset recovery team, specialising in international asset tracing, recovery and enforcement, often using insolvency as a tool to trace and recover assets.
He has extensive experience in pursuing and recovering assets both onshore and offshore, such as the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East, and the US. Grant has been developing asset recovery strategies and working alongside lawyers to obtain and enforce judgments in the Middle East, India and the BVI.

Elizabeth Fox has experience as a commercial litigator with a focus on civil fraud and contentious insolvency often as part of complex multi-jurisdictional disputes. She handles matters involving allegations of fraud or misconduct including diversion of business opportunities, secret commissions, bribery, conspiracy, data theft, misrepresentation, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of confidence, and/or breach of contract.

Elizabeth represents a wide range of clients including high net-worth individuals and many of her cases are international in scope. Her experience includes injunctive relief on both the claimant and defendant side such as search orders; freezing and asset preservation orders; delivery-up orders; computer imaging orders; third Party disclosure orders; and other asset recovery techniques. She has been identified by Chambers UK Guide as Up and Coming in the Fraud: Civil category. Chambers UK Guide 2023 also refers to Elizabeth as “a master of detail” and “simply fantastic. She understands the most complex situations very quickly, and incorporates the legal and procedural principles of other jurisdictions into her analysis with disconcerting ease”, whilst the Legal 500 UK 2023 refers to Elizabeth as “a strong and effective presence on any team.”

I am an associate director in our forensic and investigations practice. I first joined the firm in 2008 and have been helping companies investigate fraud, asset misappropriation, bribery and corruption since 2012. I have worked with a wide range of clients but have particular experience of working with clients in the financial industry and large corporates, often in an insolvent or distressed context.

From 2017 to 2019 I worked at a restructuring firm in the Cayman Islands, where I played a key role in developing its forensic offering.

Rajan Shergill is a Senior Consultant in the Digital Forensics Group (DFG) at Grant Thornton UK, having over 6 years of experience in the eDiscovery sector and he is a fully certified Relativity Master.

Rajan has managed and supported various large-scale reviews for high profile cases, involving multiple government regulators alongside major public and private sector companies. His focus is on providing consultative services to the clients based on their case needs. He assists the clients with choosing the most feasible platforms to facilitate management of their review.

He manages a wide portfolio of projects using advanced functionality on various platforms which cover document review, data processing & manipulation, early case assessment and analytics. Rajan also leads eDiscovery training across multiple departments internally.

His academic background is in Mathematics coming from an Ofsted "Outstanding" graded grammar school before graduating from a Russell Group university

Rosanna practises in commercial chancery/general commercial litigation and arbitration. She is recommended in the directories for commercial dispute resolution, commercial chancery work, company and partnership and banking and finance disputes.

She has wide-ranging experience in general commercial litigation, commercial fraud and asset tracing, company and partnership matters, corporate and personal insolvency, property litigation and trusts and probate. Many of Rosanna’s cases have an international element and she is well used to dealing with jurisdiction and conflicts of laws issues, together with the full range of interim applications which tend to form part of substantial commercial disputes, both in litigation and arbitration. Rosanna is happy to appear unled or as part of a team of counsel.

Kate is Counsel at Signature Litigation and has over ten years’ experience acting in complex, high value, cross border disputes, including civil fraud and asset tracing claims, general commercial litigation, digital asset and banking litigation.  Kate has a special interest in digital assets and tech disputes, and regularly publishes articles on and speaks about topics relating to cryptocurrencies and digital assets.

Kate has advised on all stages of litigation, from pre-action through to fully contested trials and enforcement matters.  She also has experience of a wide range of interim applications, including applications for summary judgment, specific and third-party disclosure, security for costs, worldwide freezing injunctions, orders for disclosure and delivery up, passport orders, applications for committal for contempt of court and applications for cross-examination on evidence.

Kate is ranked in the Chambers UK 2022 guide for Civil Fraud and is described as having “notable experience in civil fraud work” and commended for having “a real commercial handle on things and is completely unflappable”. In 2018, Kate co-founded ACROSS Fraud, a network for fraud lawyers in London and worldwide and in 2014 she was identified as a ‘Rising Star’ for Commercial Litigation by Thomson Reuters’ Super Lawyers.

Simon is a Jersey advocate and specialises in high-value commercial and trust litigation, enforcement and asset tracing, and cross-border insolvency matters. He has been praised for his strong technical skills, attention to detail and for having a 'real world' approach to the law, and is regularly instructed by large onshore firms in complex cross-jurisdictional matters with a Jersey element. Simon has been involved in some of the Island's largest and most complex cases, most recently in the Privy Council in the Z Trusts saga.

David is an advocate providing specialised advice in relation to business restructuring and insolvency in contentious, non-contentious and multi-jurisdictional matters

Tom is a litigator who specialises in dispute resolution and avoidance. He advises on a wide range of complex commercial, trust and private wealth disputes, usually involving an international element. His practice particularly focuses on:

Trust and private wealth disputes (including): breaches of trust and fiduciary duties; disputes between beneficiaries; blessing applications; construction applications; variation of trusts; administration applications; removal of trustees; sham trusts; claims for mistake and rectification; information requests; constructive trusts; estoppel; and disputes over investment performance.

Commercial disputes (including): contractual disputes; misrepresentation; civil fraud; tracing and recovering assets; shareholder disputes; injunctive relief; complex multi-jurisdictional issues; and insolvency issues.

Tom advises on all stages of a dispute, from initial advice and litigation avoidance, through to trial, and also in appeals, including to the Court of Appeal. This includes advising on settlement options where appropriate. His experience also extends to alternative forms of dispute resolution, such as arbitration and mediation.

Clients value Tom’s technical ability, diligence and pragmatic yet tenacious approach. He has acted in a number of high-profile disputes and his clients include: trustees and trust companies (onshore and offshore), settlors, protectors and beneficiaries; high-net-worth individuals and families with complex international assets and/or substantial family businesses; and corporates and other private businesses.

As Tom often acts in highly sensitive trust or family business disputes, he is conscious of the need to protect a client’s interests while minimising any long-term effect on the family or the business, including any associated reputational risks.

Tom is also developing a practice based on the issues associated with unexplained wealth orders for high-net-worth individuals and trustees.

Tom is a member of the Contentious Trusts Association; the British-Russian Law Association; and the London Solicitors Litigation Association.

Rob Armstrong is a managing director in the Restructuring Advisory practice, based in the London office. He has more than 15 years of experience assisting clients with allegations of fraud, misfeasance, other financial misconduct or improper behavior.

Prior to joining Kroll (Duff & Phelps rebranded as Kroll in 2021), Rob was an appointment taking director at RSM in the Special Investigations team. In this role, Rob dealt with a portfolio of cases which involved either asset tracing, high-net-worth individuals or complex insolvency litigation.

Rob specializes in contentious insolvency litigation, providing solutions to creditors and other stakeholders to recover assets both in the UK and globally. He leads complex insolvency appointments, including provisional liquidations, high-profile bankruptcies, corporate and personal fraud investigations, and pursuing directors for misfeasance.

Previous insolvency appointments include:

Trustee in bankruptcy to a previously high net worth individual with creditors in excess of £800 million. The estate included ongoing litigation in three separate jurisdictions, with a combined value in excess of £1 billion.

Liquidator of a group of 23 companies which were involved in an alleged fraudulent investment scheme using carbon credits. The group of companies was set up in a complex structure both in the UK and offshore to make recoveries for investors difficult. This appointment required working closely with many government agencies. 

Trustee in bankruptcy to an Indian steel magnate. The case involved investigating assets held in trusts and offshore corporate entities not originally disclosed. 

Rob received a bachelor’s degree with honors in management studies, specializing in finance, from the University of Leicester. He received a Certificate of Proficiency in Insolvency (CPI) and is a qualified insolvency practitioner with the Joint Insolvency Exam Board (JIEB).