Talking Trusts: Landmark Privy Council Decision

John has a broad commercial chancery practice, and particular experience of large-scale litigation involving trusts, fiduciary duties, and fraud and trusts, particularly with an international dimension.

John is regarded as one of the leading partnership and LLP silks and has experience of a wide range of both contentious and non-contentious matters across the whole range of business sectors. A large part of his work involves issues arising from the use of partnerships and LLPs in hedge fund and private equity structures; in international commercial group structures; and as part of wealth planning strategies.

A substantial part of John’s practice relates to trusts, mostly offshore, and he has appeared in the Grand Court in Cayman on a number of occasions in the last few years.

John acts as an arbitrator and as an expert pursuant to expert determination agreements. As a member of the Football Premier League Panel, John sat as the chair of an inquiry into Hull City's ticketing policy. John has conducted internal inquiries on professional conduct and other matters for firms of solicitors.

Emma has a broad commercial chancery practice, with a particular focus on domestic and offshore trust/probate litigation, civil fraud, and company disputes.  She also advises and appears as specialist Chancery counsel in financial remedy proceedings. Emma is often instructed to act as sole counsel in cases in the High Court and the County Court. She is also regularly instructed as junior counsel in large-scale commercial and chancery litigation, both onshore and offshore, and has previously appeared (ad hoc) as junior counsel in the Supreme Court of Bermuda. 

John joined Chambers as a tenant in October 2021 following the successful completion of his pupillage under the supervision of Dan McCourt Fritz, Matthew Morrison, Gareth Tilley and Dakis Hagen KC. He is developing a broad commercial chancery practice in line with Chambers’ profile. His experience includes both led and unled work, and he has been instructed as sole counsel in High Court proceedings.

In addition to his practice at the Bar, John is a distinguished academic lawyer. He has edited three books and has authored over twenty other publications in leading academic law reviews. His publications have been cited by the Supreme Court of Victoria and the Singapore Court of Appeal, as well as in numerous textbooks, articles and reference works.

Andrew joined Chambers in October 2021 following the successful completion of pupillage. He sat with Gareth Tilley, Dan McCourt Fritz, James Brightwell, Matthew Morrison and Christopher Stoner KC.

During pupillage Andrew worked on cases across Chambers’ core areas of practice including a 10-week hybrid trial in the Chancery division, a landmark trusts appeal in the Privy Council and applications for urgent without notice relief in a substantial fraud claim.

Andrew spent his first six months in practice on secondment to Peters & Peters Solicitors LLP, where he worked on complex and high-profile fraud and commercial litigation.

Before joining Serle Court, Andrew studied law at Clare College, Cambridge. He graduated with a double first-class undergraduate degree, the top mark on the Cambridge LLM and several university prizes and scholarships. During his BPTC year Andrew was a Queen Mother’s Scholar at Middle Temple and taught Land Law at Wolfson College, Cambridge.

Andrew is interested in the whole range of Chancery and Commercial work and acts in cases across Chambers’ core areas of practice. Some recent cases are listed below.

Andrew has particular interests in civil fraud and asset tracing, property, commercial remedies, and trusts (including specialist trust issues in matrimonial finance).