One Essex Court is delighted to announce that Sir David Richards has joined Chambers, following his retirement from the Court of Appeal in June. Sir David was called to the Bar in 1974 and took Silk in 1992. Whilst at the Bar, Sir David’s principal areas of practice were company law and corporate insolvency, including takeovers and mergers, restructuring, acquisitions, joint ventures, shareholder disputes, directors’ duties and governance, corporate regulation, but it extended to general commercial disputes, auditing and accounting and insurance and banking business transfers.
In the Court of Appeal, Sir David gave the leading judgments, alone or with others, in a wide range of commercial and corporate cases, including international arbitration (Sabbagh v Khoury, Adactive Media v Ingrouille), jurisdictional challenges (Privatbank v Kolomoisky, Easy Rent A Car v Easy Group), international law (Law Debenture v Ukraine), company law (BTI 2014 v Sequana, Rossendale BC v Hurstwood Properties), lawful act duress (Times Travel v Pakistan International Airlines), rights under dematerialised bonds (Secure Capital v Credit Suisse), insurance business transfers (Prudential Assurance) and insolvency (Debenhams Retail).
As a High Court Judge, Sir David was the assigned judge for the administrations of T&N/Federal Mogul, Lehman Brothers and MF Global, giving many reported judgments in each. Other cases included shareholder disputes (Re Coroin: McKillen v Misland), schemes of arrangement (Telewest Communications, Cape plc, Vietnam Shipbuilding Co, Magyar Telecom BV), derivative contracts (Fondazione Enasarco v Lehman Brothers SA), Argentinian Government bonds (Knighthead Master Fund v BNY Mellon) and insolvency (HMRC v Football League).
In welcoming Sir David to Chambers, Lord Grabiner said “I am absolutely delighted to welcome Sir David Richards to One Essex Court. He is a distinguished lawyer with a widely respected grasp of commercial realities. He plans to take on arbitration/mediation appointments and I am sure he will be a top choice as arbiter for entities engaged in the processes around dispute resolution.”
For further information in relation to the expertise available at One Essex Court, please contact Darren Burrows on 020 7583 2000 and at dburrows@oeclaw.co.uk.