One Essex Court has a long established reputation for pre-eminence in banking work, with a considerable depth of talent available at all levels of seniority. Ranked in Band 1 for Banking and Finance in both Chambers UK and The Legal 500, members regularly advise domestic and international banks (both retail and investment), financial institutions, hedge funds, corporate entities and private clients on a wide range of complex transactions, structures and regulation.
Expertise covers a broad spectrum of financial instruments and arrangements including syndicated loans, security structures, collateralised debt obligations, cryptocurrency, debt restructuring, swaps and derivatives (including ISDA swaps), contracts for difference, letters of credit, mortgages, guarantees, bonds and commodity trading.
In addition, our financial services expertise sees members regularly engaged to advise on the rules and guidance contained in the FCA and PRA Handbooks and the Financial Services and Markets Act, and to act for clients faced with enforcement proceedings, prosecutions, or investigations. Barristers at One Essex Court also work closely with the Financial Conduct Authority, with counsel occasionally undertaking secondments at the FCA in order to gain valuable experience and insight into the important work of the regulator.
Recent high-profile banking work has included: Philipp v Barclays Bank in the Supreme Court to consider whether a bank owed a duty to its customer to refrain from executing an authorised payment instruction, when the bank had reasonable grounds for believing that the instruction had been induced by fraud; PJSC National Bank Trust v Mints, in which the Court of Appeal considered a number of important and far reaching questions of law concerning the UK’s sanctions regime.; Royal Bank of Canada v HMRC, a case which concerned the construction of article 6 of the UK / Canada double tax treaty; Kwok and oths v UBS, which considered questions of jurisdiction under the 2007 Lugano Convention; The ECU Group Plc v HSBC Bank UK Plc, a case concerned with alleged manipulation of the foreign exchange markets; and Deutsche Bank AG & Ors. v. the Administrators of LB Holdings Ltd (in admin), in a landmark case concerning how a surplus should be divided among the subordinated creditors in the administration.
A wide range of counsel at One Essex Court have been engaged to act for claimants and banks in relation to a variety of industry wide issues. Those have included claims as a result of the LIBOR rate rigging scandal, and market manipulation in the Forex markets, as well as an investigation into the role of Bank of England officials in relation to conduct issues in the foreign exchange market.
In addition to more recent work, One Essex Court has a long history of major banking litigation involvements. That has included significant mandates in cases flowing from the collapse of BCCI, Northern Rock, Kaupthing Bank and Lehman Brothers, as well as major engagements as a result of ‘rouge traders’ at Sumitomo Bank and Barings Bank, and complex financial work dealing with the fallout from the Madoff frauds.