Charles Fussell & Co LLP is instructed in respect of a $15 million dispute in the Commercial Court
Charles Fussell & Co LLP has been instructed by QOGT Inc ("QOGT") in relation to an $18 million claim against a Guernsey-based oil and gas technology fund.
QOGT, a Canadian corporation, entered into an investment management and advisory agreement (the "IMAA") with Quorum European Partners LLP (now Linton Capital LLP) ("QEP") and Quorum Oil and Gas Technology Fund Limited (the "Fund") in December 2007. Under the terms of the IMAA, QOGT and QEP were appointed as joint investment managers of the Fund.
In July 2010, the Fund terminated the IMAA on the basis that QOGT and QEP had allegedly not managed the Fund jointly. QOGT maintains that the Fund had no basis to terminate the IMAA and claims damages for the loss it has suffered as a result of what it regards as a wrongful termination of the agreement, and instructed Charles Fussell & Co to bring proceedings in the Commercial Court. Harbour Litigation Investment Fund LP is funding the costs of the claim, and ATE insurance, through Brit Insurance, has also been obtained.
Charles Fussell & Co LLP was instructed in July 2011 and issued a claim on behalf of QOGT in the Commercial Court in January 2012. Alain Choo Choy QC of One Essex Court and Simon Atrill of Fountain Court have been instructed on behalf of QOGT.
The Fund has retained Norton Rose LLP as solicitors and has instructed Jonathan Hirst QC and Richard Blakeley of Brick Court Chambers as counsel.
The matter is currently progressing in the Commercial Court.
Charles Fussell & Co LLP is engaged to act in £1.7 million claim
Charles Fussell & Co LLP has been instructed to act for a major manufacturer of fire protection systems in the defence of a £1.7 million claim brought in the High Court by a substantial commercial organisation which was the ultimate customer of one of those systems. Some years previously, the client took over the business of the company which had originally produced the fire protection system and the contractor who had installed that system had gone into insolvent liquidation. The customer is therefore seeking to rely on various side agreements which it alleges were made directly between the client’s predecessor and customer and then between the client and customer over the course of a number of years.
The case raises several interesting legal questions, including the circumstances under which contracts can be made for the benefit of third parties, how contractual benefits and burdens may be transferred and how far promises of assistance by employees can be relied upon as evidence of contractual intention. Those issues will be relevant to all manufacturers who have sought to assist the ultimate customers of their products but find that they are on the receiving end of claims in circumstances where they are the only parties worth suing.
Charles Fussell & Co LLP has instructed Jonathan Selby of Keating Chambers.
Charles Fussell & Co LLP instructed to act in professional negligence action against solicitors
Charles Fussell & Co LLP has been instructed to act for a private individual who alleges he has been the victim of professional negligence by his former solicitors in connection with security over land for a loan – not once but twice.
Our client will allege that his first set of solicitors failed to advise him about his rights under an existing development agreement and then failed to achieve any security for a loan in excess of £800,000 which he believed was secured and which he made to a business associate who promptly failed to repay that loan and then disappeared. He will then say that his second set of solicitors, on being instructed to perfect his security, failed to take any effective steps to do so before a third party achieved better security over the land in question.
The case will raise questions about the scope of a solicitor’s duty to his client to advise on business matters and will be of interest to all who have lost out as a result of poor professional service.
Charles Fussell & Co LLP has instructed Michelle Stevens-Hoare of Hardwicke Chambers.
Charles Fussell & Co instructed to defend s994 Companies Act Petition
Charles Fussell & Co has been instructed to act on behalf of four of the five potential individual respondents in respect of a shareholders' dispute arising out of a family-owned company. The dispute is complex and arises out of a series of alleged oral agreements made in the 1980s and 1990s within the context of the family business and dynamics. In particular, the central issue in the dispute concerns whether or not an alleged oral agreement between brothers is capable of being enforced in contract law, trust law and/or by means of utilising the mechanism set out in s994 Companies Act 1996. The matter is estimated to be worth up to £8.5 million.
Charles Fussell and Elizabeth Stoppelmoor will be involved in this matter.
Charles Fussell & Co LLP instructed in multi-national dispute
Charles Fussell & Co LLP has been instructed to act for a Guernsey-based investment advisory company in a major claim against a London-based investment company and its international subsidiaries. The claim arises from the breach by that investment group of an oral joint venture agreement, under which the parties agreed to cooperate and share the lucrative fees available for introducing investors to funds and vice versa. In this case, however, clients may have been subsequently encouraged to create new agreements with the investment group alone, cutting out the advisory company. The investment company may then have concealed the subsequent income by diverting it to hidden offshore subsidiaries.
The case raises numerous difficult legal questions, including those that frequently attend oral agreements part-evidenced in writing, as well as the use and abuse of the “corporate veil”, the pursuit of offshore parties whose very existence may be concealed from a claimant at the time he brings his claim, and the questions that arise where introductions are made by a third party that is itself arguably an asset introduced by a party. It will be of interest to those involved in the financial services industry, in particular those who are involved in corporate introductions, and considering constructing joint venture plans in that field.
Daniel Saoul and Graeme McPherson QC, both of Four New Square Chambers, have been retained to act as Counsel.