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Maitland has particular experience in both the contentious and non-contentious sides of company law, and is regularly featured in the legal directories as one of the handful of leading barristers’ chambers in this area, with some of the more highly recommended individual practitioners. Our work includes directors’ duties (as they arise both in claims for their breach and in disqualification actions), shareholder disputes, takeovers, mergers and acquisitions, corporate reconstructions, loan capital and banking securities, schemes of arrangement and reductions of capital, and insurance schemes.

Barristers at Maitland have been involved in many of the leading cases in this area, including Prudential Assurance v Newman Industries. Examples of our more recent experience include:

• Sinclair Investments v Versailles – leading case on the modern law of constructive trusts, addressing the proprietary consequences of benefits obtained by reason of a company director’s fiduciary status
• RBS v Hicks - company directors dispute relating to the proposed takeover of Liverpool FC also involving applications for anti-suit injunctions
• Bilta (UK) Ltd v Nazir - non-application of ex turpi causa to claim by company against sole director/shareholder
• Isis Investments Ltd v Oscatello Investments Ltd – litigation worth over £130 million arising out of the collapse of the Icelandic bank, Kaupthing: allegations of shadow directorship and breach of fiduciary duty
• Progress Property v Moorgath Group – claim that the sale of shares by one company to another had been below their market value and that there was reason to doubt the genuineness of the transaction as a commercial sale
• Ultraframe v Fielding – leading case on the law of shadow directors and fiduciary duties
• Northern Rock - acted for the hedge fund shareholder SRM in its claim against the UK Government following nationalisation of the failed bank
• Gamlestaden Fastigheter AB v Baltic Partners Limited (Privy Council) - a landmark decision on the scope of the unfair prejudice remedy for company shareholders
• The Square Mile Partnership Ltd v Fitzmaurice McCall Ltd - a dispute over the meaning of “accumulated net worth”
• Secretary of State for Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform v Aaron - a directors’ disqualification case
• Gregson v HAE Trustees Ltd - the leading authority on whether directors of a company owe duties directly to beneficiaries of trusts of which the company is trustee
• Savannah v Mintley Investments - hearings in Gibraltar in relation to an unfair prejudice petition about oil companies with assets in the Black Sea
• Mission Capital plc v Sinclair - the first reported case on derivative actions under the Companies Act 2006
• Re BAE Systems - expert evidence of company law for the Court in Washington
• Re an ATP tournament - appearing in a trial in the BVI concerning a minority shareholders' dispute about the holding of a major tennis tournament
• Secretary of State for Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform v Sullman & Poole - a director’s disqualification case following misconduct and misrepresentation in selling the Claims Direct products and in the flotation of the company on the stock market

Maitland is ranked in Company Law in the Chambers UK Guide and The Legal 500.