With January now in the rear-view mirror, the courts are properly back in full swing with litigants ramping up their efforts significantly.
This week sees a host of fascinating cases with an African nation suing one of the world’s largest investment banks and an enormous follow-on damages claim seeking to get off the ground.
Russian oligarchs were in court last week arguing over a fishing empire. This Tuesday, it’s the turn of the Ukrainians.
Gennadiy Bogolyubov and Igor Kolomoisky have been bankrolling a handful of the City’s most prominent practitioners for the better part of a decade now. Their dispute with PJSC Tatneft rumbles on after the business alleged that the pair, along with two of their associates, misappropriated funds from the business. The Russian-state-owned oil business secured a freezing order against assets owned by the quartet worth up to $380m with this two-day High Court hearing brought to vary and possibly expand the terms of that order.
This is one of the first hearings in which Enyo partner George Maling and 3 Verulam Building’s (3VB) Ewan McQuater QC, Matthew Parker and Phillip Hinks will represent Bogolyubov, after he elected to replace long-term advisers Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom with the litigation boutique.
Kolomoisky is sticking with his favoured firm, Fieldfisher, with partner Andrew Lafferty instructing Essex Court’s James Collins QC and Ruth den Besten, while Mishcon de Reya partner Annabel Thomas is instructing One Essex Court’s Kenneth MacLean QC and Owain Draper for third defendant Alexander Yaroslavsky. Pavel Ovcharenko has retained Byrne & Partners partner Nicola Boulton and Blackstone Chambers’ Harry Adamson.
There was an interesting aside to the main theatre of oligarch litigation that might have been easily missed. PJSC Tatneft has been instructing Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld throughout this litigation with partners Richard Hornshaw and Ilya Rybalkin keeping the hip steady. That was until Rybalkin left to co-found his own firm – Rybalkin Gortsunyan & Partners (RSP) – due to US sanctions on Russian entities restricting his practice. The counsel team of Essex Court’s Paul McGrath QC, James Sheehan and Bibek Mukherjee remains unchanged and the mandate has stayed with the US firm as partner Kambiz Larizadeh replaces Rybalkin.
From oil to gas now as Cats North Sea Limited v Teesside Gas Transportation Limited kicks off with evidence being given in a dispute over the calculation of a capacity fee.
Cats – an acronym for Central Area Transmission System – is a method of transporting natural gas from a North Sea drilling operation to a Teesside base. This dispute stems from how much the defendant should be paying the claimant for the transportation of that natural resource.
Cats has turned to Pinsent Masons partner Katharine Davies and Brick Court’s Tim Lord QC and Richard Eschwege against TGT which has drafted in Boies Schiller & Flexner partner Will Hooker to lead on the case, instructing Quadrant Chambers’ Simon Rainey QC and Henry Ellis in the four-week long case.
The list would never be considered complete were it not for entries from The Lawyer’s Top 20 cases, though this week features one old and one new.
Firstly, the 2017 entry of Walter Hugh Merricks CBE v MasterCard Inc & Ors continues with a two-day Court of Appeal hearing in which Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan partner Boris Bronfentrinker will be battling his old firm to bring the £14bn Interchange battle against MasterCard.
The case’s history has been littered with false starts though a decision from the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) in mid-November gave the clearest indication that it was belatedly set to kick off. Should the Court of Appeal reinforce the CAT’s judgment, Bronfentrinker – representing Merricks in the case – will lock horns with his former Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer colleagues Jon Lawrence, Jonathan Isted, Nick Frey and Mark Sansom.
Bronfentrinker now boasts a trio of silks at his disposal after Victoria Wakefield QC took silk in the latest round of appointments. She joins Brick Court colleague Marie Demetriou QC and Monckton Chambers’ Paul Harris QC who will face-off against Brick Court’s Mark Hoskins QC, Tony Singla and Hugo Leith, and One Essex Court’s Matthew Cook in this two-day hearing, starting on Tuesday.
The second Top 20 case featured in this year’s list sees The Federal Republic of Nigeria suing JP Morgan Chase for more than $1bn. The West African nation alleges that the investment bank ran a fraudulent and corrupt scheme when it sold the rights to a Nigerian oilfield to a joint venture of Shell and ENI.
Nigeria claims that JP Morgan was informed that payment instructions could be used to defraud it and, if it is found to have ignored those instructions, this could prove a pivotal judgment for banks’ Quincecare duties.
RPC and Freshfields are at the forefront of this case with RPC partners Tom Hibbert and Jonathan Cary acting against Freshfields’ Sarah Parkes. Hibbert and Cary are instructing Brick Court’s Roger Masefield QC, Richard Blakeley and Ben Woolgar, while Parkes has turned to Fountain Court’s Rosalind Phelps QC and David Murray.
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