Callum Reid-Hutchings

Areas of expertise

• Commercial Dispute Resolution

  Commercial Dispute Resolution

  Callum has a busy commercial litigation and arbitration practice, appearing as sole counsel in the High Court, the London Circuit Commercial Court and the County Court, and in domestic and international arbitration under LMAA, LCIA and market terms. He is instructed across the full life-cycle of a dispute, from pre-action strategy, letters before action and statements of case, through interim applications and disclosure, to trial and enforcement.

  His commercial work has a particular emphasis on contractual construction in high-value settings (facility agreements, guarantees, franchise and distribution agreements, share purchase and settlement agreements, charterparties), on injunctions and other urgent relief, and on disputes involving founders, entrepreneurs and sportspeople. Many of his commercial instructions overlap with his civil fraud, company and insolvency practice, and he is frequently brought in where a commercial claim needs to be run alongside insolvency or enforcement steps.

  Commercial contracts, guarantees and debt

  • Technology services and equity investment dispute – £3.25 million+ (High Court, Business and Property Courts, 2026, led by David Lewis KC). Instructed as junior counsel to David Lewis KC in a substantial multi-cause action arising from the termination of a composite commercial arrangement between a UK technology company and an Abu Dhabi-incorporated financial services group, comprising a Development and Licensing Agreement and an Advanced Subscription Agreement with an aggregate value in excess of £3.25 million. The claim engages sophisticated issues on repudiatory breach and affirmation; debt versus damages in the context of unallotted equity subscriptions (Grewal v Chakraborty [2021] EWHC 3260 (Ch)); the construction of mutual limitation clauses and the Photo Production principle in respect of deliberate repudiatory breach; intellectual property in software deliverables under a terminated licence; mitigation by way of substitute equity financing; and service out of the jurisdiction in a cross-border commercial dispute. 
  • Television co-production financing dispute – US$470,000+ (Circuit Commercial Court, 2026, unled). Acting unled for a US television production company in a claim exceeding US$470,000 in debt, together with consequential damages, an indemnity and declaratory relief, against its UK co-producer and financier arising from the funding of a ten-part television series pre-sold to a major broadcaster. The case turns on the true construction of a binding heads of terms and whether monthly production funding under an agreed cash flow schedule could lawfully be withheld pending accounting reconciliation, engaging conditions precedent, waiver and estoppel, renunciation, the prevention principle and the interaction between a co-production agreement and a third-party programme licence. Callum drafted the Particulars of Claim and advises on all aspects of the litigation, including interlocutory strategy. 
  • Tan & Anor v Lawrence (BL-2024-001821, High Court, Business and Property Courts, led by David Lewis KC). Acting for the Defendant in proceedings concerning a disputed US$15 million share acquisition in an international insurance company and related US$30 million loan facilities, involving allegations of fraudulent misrepresentation, disputed oral variation of written contracts and a counterclaim for specific performance, and raising the enforceability of “no oral modification” clauses and the interplay between entire agreement provisions and fraud claims in high-value cross-border transactions involving parties in the USA, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. 
  • £7.25 million share charge enforcement claim (High Court, Business List (ChD), 2026, unled). Instructed for the defendant in a claim for payment, damages and specific performance on a share charge over shares in an offshore company held through nominee and declaration of trust structures. Acting on the defendant’s application to strike out the Particulars of Claim and for summary judgment under CPR rr.3.4 and 24, the matter engages the construction of security instruments, beneficial ownership and perfection of security over foreign shares, penalty default interest, remoteness and a multi-million pound loss-of-profit claim, abuse of process and cross-border service and jurisdiction, against a backdrop of parallel enforcement proceedings and civil fraud elements.
  • Term sheet dispute arising from £5.93 million bridge facility (Claim No. N9QZ4G3P, 2026, unled). Acting for a Cayman-domiciled credit fund in a commercial finance dispute over the enforceability of the binding provisions of a subject to contract term sheet for a £5.93 million bridge facility. Drafted the Particulars of Claim and settled a CPR Part 24 summary judgment application on the construction of partly binding preliminary agreements and intention to create legal relations. 
  • Jurisdictional challenge to Delaware AAA arbitration clause (2026, pre-action, led by Philip Roberts KC of One Essex Court). Advised on and drafted correspondence establishing the primacy of an English-law exclusive jurisdiction clause over a competing AAA arbitration clause seated in Delaware contained in a US technology platform provider’s standard terms.
  • £3 million personal guarantee dispute (Insolvency and Companies List). Acting for the applicant in a dispute concerning overstated statutory demands, “conclusive evidence” clauses, and the court’s residual discretion where a creditor pursues a guarantor while enforcing security it has declined to disclose.
  • Litigation funder and law firm – failed claims marketing campaign. Acting for an SRA-regulated litigation funder and law firm in a substantial commercial dispute arising from a failed motor finance claims marketing campaign, concerning the recovery of advance payments under a bespoke contractual reconciliation mechanism where entitlement to fees turned on multiple conditions precedent, including third-party lender verification. The matter raised technical questions on the construction of staged deposit and set-off provisions, the correct VAT treatment of advance payments on an unwound supply, and the propriety of insolvency process where a debt is disputed on substantial grounds. Instructed to advise on strategy and merits and to draft the letter before action and statement of case. 
  • Multi-party creditor claim against international media group. Acts for a group of nine creditors in a substantial multi-party claim against an international media group and its principal, involving deceit, breach of contract, guarantee and share-based remuneration disputes spread across UK, Gibraltar, Netherlands and BVI entities. Callum settled the group pleading and advised on interim relief and enforcement against a high-value London property. 
  • Professional defending c.£1 million investor claim. Acting for a professional defending a claim approaching £1 million brought by two high net worth investors, arising out of an unsecured short-term lending scheme said to have been operated through the firm by which that professional was engaged. The case raises the scope of a professional’s actual and ostensible authority, a firm’s vicarious liability for conduct said to fall outside the ordinary course of its business, concurrent claims in debt and breach of trust, and the reach of sections 26 and 27 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.
  • Yayasan Khazanah v Randhawa (KB-2025-BRS-000086). Sole counsel for a Malaysian scholarship foundation in a six-figure High Court claim to enforce a Malaysian judgment at common law, listed for trial in the King’s Bench Division and raising novel questions of private international law including the penal law exception and a public policy defence founded on an alleged restraint of marriage and Article 12 ECHR. 
  • Contractual debt claim – strike out and summary judgment. Sole counsel for the defendant in a £46,000 contractual debt claim raising intention to create legal relations, promissory estoppel and abuse of process; advised on and drafted a strike out and summary judgment application.
  • Aircraft purchase dispute – US$12 million (High Court / arbitration, unled). Representing the seller in a US$12 million aircraft purchase agreement dispute involving escrow arrangements and breach of contract claims, requiring analysis of complex international commercial arrangements and jurisdictional issues under English law.
  • High-value investment dispute – pre-action (2025). Drafted the response to a letter before action in a high-value investment dispute concerning alleged breaches regarding the performance of investment assets and the interpretation of specialised contractual provisions in volatile markets. The response reframed the dispute by identifying fundamental contractual misunderstandings in the claimant’s position, establishing the proper assessment of contractual values, challenging misconceived interest calculations and neutralising implied insolvency threats.
  • South Korean distribution agreement dispute (Commercial Court, 2025). Drafted the letter before action and Particulars of Claim in a six-figure dispute with a South Korean distributor, addressing English law enforcement against an overseas entity, the effectiveness of the jurisdiction clause under Hague Convention principles, material breach thresholds for international distribution agreements, service out on Asian corporate defendants and anti-suit considerations.
  • Energy sector software dispute (2024, unled). Drafted the Defence and Counterclaim in a software implementation dispute where the platform failed to meet operational requirements, articulating concurrent claims in breach of contract, misrepresentation and unjust enrichment.
  • Motorsport contract dispute (2025, unled). Drafted the Defence to a racing contract debt claim following termination after safety incidents, establishing repeated wheel failures and regulatory breaches as repudiatory breaches justifying termination without following contractual notice provisions, and combining technical championship regulations with contract law to show the client had been deprived of the essential benefit of the contract. 
  • Healthcare equipment lease misrepresentation (2025, unled). Drafted Particulars of Claim for a consumer healthcare business misled into signing an equipment lease, engaging contract formation where documents were signed under a fundamental mistake, the Consumer Rights Act 2015, unjust enrichment in the context of void and voidable contracts, and common mistake in a commercial setting.
  • Private investigation services dispute (2025, unled). Drafted Particulars of Claim in a five-figure claim against a private investigation firm which failed to deliver specialist financial investigation services concerning hidden hedge fund assets, advancing claims under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, breach of contract, common mistake and unjust enrichment.
  • International finance commission dispute – €4,085,250 yacht financing (2024, unled). Drafted the letter before action in a dispute concerning unpaid commission on a yacht financing arrangement, engaging agency principles in international financing, the interpretation of 90-day exclusivity provisions, effective cause and alternative quantum meruit claims, and positioning the case for summary judgment. 
  • Property acquisition commission dispute (High Court, 2024, unled). Drafted pre-action correspondence in a commission dispute concerning high-value property acquisitions, applying estate agency principles on the trigger points for commission, the “effective cause” doctrine and quantum meruit as an alternative basis of recovery; the letter before action secured immediate settlement without proceedings. 
  • Recruitment agency commission dispute (2024). Drafted an Amended Defence in a recruitment agency commission dispute turning on effective cause, concurrent introductions by different parties, causation under the agency agreement and quantum meruit for partial performance.
  • Independent school fee recovery – summary judgment (2024, unled). Successfully represented an independent school in summary judgment proceedings for unpaid fees of £31,364.04, establishing under CPR 24.2 that defences based on discretionary bursary decisions and financial hardship had no realistic prospect of success.

  Injunctions and interim relief

  • Big Drop Brewing Company Ltd v GBDC Ltd (IL-2026-000015, Intellectual Property List (ChD)). Acting unled for the claimant brand owner, obtaining urgent interim injunctive relief at a without notice hearing before Edwin Johnson J restraining the sale of trade marked stock acquired through a pre-pack administration, and subsequently securing the continuation of that relief to trial at a contested return date. The case raised commercially significant questions at the intersection of intellectual property and insolvency law, including exhaustion of rights under section 12 of the Trade Marks Act 1994, the extent of the title capable of being transferred by administrators on a pre-pack sale, and the proper approach to full and frank disclosure on without notice applications. 
  • Re Biwater Holdings Ltd and Biwater International Ltd (in compulsory liquidation) (unled). Acting for two Luxembourg investment funds with claims exceeding £72 million in an application for urgent interim relief under sections 167(3) and 168(5) of the Insolvency Act 1986 to restrain the joint liquidators from completing a contested intellectual property sale pending a court-supervised comparison with a competing offer, alongside an application for their removal under section 172(2).
  • Proprietary and freezing injunction proceedings – £7.2 million loan facilities (London Circuit Commercial Court, 2026). Acting for the Second Respondent, an investment LLP, in proprietary and freezing injunction proceedings arising from alleged defaults under loan facilities exceeding £7.2 million and disputed guarantees said to bind the LLP. Instructed at the return date and advising on asset disclosure, variations and the treatment of third party interests. 
  • Levinson v Cross [2025] EWHC 3148 (Ch). Successfully represented the respondent leaseholder before Richard Smith J in urgent injunction proceedings raising the novel question of whether personal representatives possess a common law right to enter private property to search for a deceased’s remains. The Judge found there was a serious question to be tried, refused the injunction on the balance of convenience, and held that the clean hands doctrine precluded equitable relief in any event. Costs awarded to the respondent. 
  • Re Wotter Group Ltd; Johnson v Wotter Group Ltd & Anor (CR-2026-003354). Acting unled for the company and its Chief Executive, the petitioner’s application for urgent interim injunctive relief in a multi-million pound unfair prejudice petition was dismissed with indemnity costs. 
  • Freezing relief in support of arbitration (Arbitration Act 1996, s.44). Advising on freezing injunction relief in support of a confidential arbitration concerning a seven-figure residential development, involving the interplay between the tribunal’s powers and the court’s section 44 jurisdiction, the test for risk of dissipation, and a disputed payment waterfall and VAT liability.
  • Multi-million pound property group – injunction to restrain seizure of corporate control (High Court). Urgent application for interim injunctive relief to prevent an allegedly unlawful seizure of corporate control in a property development group with assets exceeding eight figures, involving procedurally defective extraordinary general meetings, the American Cyanamid framework, Companies Act 2006 shareholder meeting requirements, pre-emption rights under the articles and the validity of a declaration of trust in a nominee shareholding structure. The status quo was preserved pending determination of the underlying ownership dispute.
  • Anti-suit injunction – exclusive English jurisdiction clause (unled). Advised on an anti-suit injunction application to restrain foreign proceedings brought in breach of an exclusive English jurisdiction clause, engaging the construction of contractual jurisdiction provisions and the principles governing anti-suit relief in international commercial disputes. [See also: International]
  • Freezing injunction – disputed fees claim. Acting for the defendants in a disputed fees claim involving the duty of full and frank disclosure, the materiality of evidence and procedural obligations on urgent applications. 
  • Privacy order – confidential mediation communications. Secured a privacy order protecting confidential mediation and without prejudice communications in high-profile professional services litigation involving substantial sums and sensitive commercial arrangements.
  • Restraint of winding-up petition. Obtained an undertaking from the respondent not to present a winding-up petition pending the final hearing of the substantive commercial dispute, securing a structured timetable and breathing space for resolution of the underlying issues.

  Franchising, distribution and relational contracts

  • Emiran and Associates Ltd and others v HCP (Franchise) Ltd (CL-2024-000497, Commercial Court). Acted unled for the defendant franchisor in a franchise dispute valued at c.£4.7 million (advanced pre-action at over £16 million), successfully resisting the claimants’ application to strike out the defence, which was dismissed with costs on the indemnity basis, and securing permission to serve a comprehensively re-pleaded Amended Defence. The matter engaged relief from sanctions, the amendment jurisdiction, and the construction of a deed-based franchise agreement in the regulated care sector, including personal guarantees, entire agreement and non-reliance provisions, and a root-and-branch challenge to a multi-million pound lost-profits claim.
  • Franchise termination – children’s education sector (High Court-bound, sole counsel). Instructed as sole counsel in a High Court-bound franchise dispute concerning the summary termination of a five-year exclusive territory franchise in the children’s education sector. The matter involves the construction of contractual termination machinery, repudiatory breach, implied duties of good faith and rationality in the exercise of franchisor discretions, the enforceability of post-termination restrictive covenants in restraint of trade, and a substantial six-figure claim for loss of profits and wasted expenditure, together with declaratory relief.
  • Ellis & Ors v John Benson Ltd [2025] EWHC 2096 (KB). Instructed to provide written submissions on the competition law issues in this landmark multi-party franchise dispute before Freedman J, in which twenty former driving instructor franchisees challenged their agreements with a national driving school franchisor following a sixteen-day trial. The submissions addressed whether the franchisor’s contractual control over tuition fees amounted to price fixing under the Chapter I prohibition of the Competition Act 1998, the availability of block exemption under the VABEO, and whether any offending provision was severable from the wider agreement. The decision is now regarded as a turning point in the treatment of implied good faith obligations in franchising and relational contracts. Callum assisted Mark Stephens in representing the franchisees at trial (QB-2021-000741).
  • Specific disclosure application in franchise dispute (High Court, 2025, unled). Acted unled against King’s Counsel in a specific disclosure application involving a comprehensive analysis of disclosure inconsistencies and a challenge to the respondent’s evolving narrative on document availability.
  • Price fixing in franchise agreements – competition law advice (2025). Provided written advice on the competition law aspects of franchisor-mandated pricing schemes, addressing direct and indirect price fixing under section 2(2)(a) of the Competition Act 1998, the application of the Pronuptia principles to franchise pricing provisions, the designation of resale price maintenance as a “by object” restriction, the limited availability of block exemption for hardcore restraints, severability following Jones v Ricoh, English Welsh & Scottish Railway v E.ON and Vickers v Jackson, and practical guidance on restructuring pricing provisions to preserve enforceability.
  • Franchise termination dispute (sole counsel). Acting for a franchisee in a high-value franchise termination dispute, encompassing the contractual machinery for summary termination, repudiatory breach and affirmation, implied duties of good faith in relational contracts, and the enforceability of post-termination restrictive covenants under the restraint of trade doctrine. Callum advised on merits, quantum and pre-action strategy, settled the Particulars of Claim seeking damages and declaratory relief valued at up to six figures, and drafted the pre-action settlement correspondence.
  • Exclusive debt recovery mandate – US$11 million+ LCIA arbitration. Advising and acting for a specialist asset recovery consultancy in an LCIA arbitration claim against a major Nigerian commercial bank arising from unpaid commission under an exclusive debt recovery mandate. The dispute involves complex issues of contractual construction under English law, including the enforceability of liquidated damages provisions for unilateral compromise of referred debts, and cross-border recovery of non-performing loans in the Nigerian oil and gas sector.

  Brands, restrictive covenants and competition

  • Trade mark and restrictive covenant dispute with multi-billion pound leisure group. Instructed as sole counsel by a prominent entrepreneur in a substantial trade mark and restrictive covenant dispute with the private equity backed leisure group that continues to trade under the brand he founded. The matter spans High Court proceedings, registry oppositions and the negotiation of a global coexistence and settlement agreement, and engages the enforceability of covenants given on a stock market flotation several decades ago.
  • Worldwide restrictive covenants under a PE management incentive plan. Advised a departing senior executive and their incoming employer in a multi-million pound dispute arising from worldwide restrictive covenants and equity forfeiture provisions under a private equity-backed management incentive plan, including the standard of scrutiny applicable to covenants in investment agreements rather than contracts of employment.

  Sports, media and luxury assets

  • London art gallery v national self-storage group – destruction of artworks worth over £2.7 million (TCC-bound, sole counsel). Acting as sole counsel for a leading London art gallery in a high six-figure claim against a national self-storage group following the destruction by fire of artworks worth over £2.7 million, raising complex issues of negligence, fire safety regulation, the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 and group company liability. 
  • Television co-production financing dispute (Circuit Commercial Court, 2026, unled). US$470,000+ claim for a US production company against its UK co-producer and financier over the withholding of monthly production funding for a ten-part series pre-sold to a major broadcaster. 
  • Career-ending injury policy – market arbitration. Acting for a professional sportsperson in a seven figure claim under a career-ending injury policy against London market insurers, raising issues of policy construction, consumer rights and late payment, and proceeding by way of market arbitration. 
  • Superyacht charter cancellation – LMAA arbitration. Instructed on behalf of an international charterer in a high-value superyacht dispute arising from an owner’s last-minute cancellation of a Mediterranean charter, involving claims for liquidated damages under the MYBA Charter Agreement. The matter raises complex issues concerning force majeure, seaworthiness and vessel maintenance obligations, supported by competing expert marine engineering evidence, and is proceeding towards London arbitration under LMAA Terms.
  • Luxury yacht charter – wrongful termination (LMAA arbitration, unled). Acting for the charterer in a high-value dispute concerning the wrongful termination of a luxury yacht charter agreement, involving issues of European criminal law, CCTV evidence disclosure and six-figure damages claims.
  • Yacht construction warranty claims – US$3 million+ (international arbitration, unled). Acting in a substantial counterclaim concerning defective luxury yacht construction, involving extensive warranty breaches, Consumer Rights Act claims and copyright infringement issues, with complex technical evidence on vessel defects and damages exceeding US$3 million. 
  • Challenge to arbitrator appointment (LMAA arbitration). Defending the validity of an arbitrator’s appointment against a challenge based on alleged procedural irregularities, engaging the requirements for a valid appointment, formal versus substantive compliance with appointment procedures, and waiver and estoppel in the arbitration context.
  • Motorsport contract dispute (2025, unled). Defence to a racing contract debt claim following termination after repeated wheel failures and regulatory breaches, combining championship regulations with the law of repudiatory breach.
• Civil Fraud & Asset Recovery

  Civil Fraud & Asset Recovery

  Civil fraud and asset recovery is a core and rapidly growing part of Callum’s practice. He acts for claimants and defendants in claims of deceit, unlawful means conspiracy, dishonest assistance, knowing receipt and breach of fiduciary duty, and in the proprietary, tracing and freezing relief that typically accompanies them. He is frequently instructed by office-holders, litigation funders and creditors seeking to unwind asset-stripping or recover misappropriated funds, and by respondents to freezing orders, including non-parties whose assets are caught by the relief.

  Callum’s fraud work overlaps heavily with his insolvency and company practice: many of his instructions involve sections 238, 239, 127 and 423 of the Insolvency Act 1986, directors’ fraud on creditors, and the pursuit of the “real party” behind asset-less corporate litigants. He also acts as junior counsel in large group actions alleging market abuse and conspiracy.

  Freezing and proprietary injunctions

  • Proprietary and freezing injunction proceedings – £7.2 million loan facilities (London Circuit Commercial Court, 2026). Acting for the Second Respondent, an investment LLP, in proprietary and freezing injunction proceedings arising from alleged defaults under loan facilities exceeding £7.2 million and disputed guarantees said to bind the LLP. The case raises the interaction between commercial fraud relief and matrimonial finance, including the effect of a separation agreement on transfers of registered land, threatened claims under section 423 of the Insolvency Act 1986, and the position of non-parties holding assets caught by the order. Instructed at the return date and advising on asset disclosure, variations and the treatment of third party interests. 
  • Freezing relief in support of arbitration (s.44 Arbitration Act 1996). Advising on freezing injunction relief in support of a confidential arbitration concerning a seven-figure residential development, involving the interplay between the tribunal’s powers and the court’s section 44 jurisdiction, the test for risk of dissipation, and a disputed payment waterfall and VAT liability. 
  • Big Drop Brewing Company Ltd v GBDC Ltd (IL-2026-000015). Urgent without notice and return date injunctive relief restraining the sale of trade marked stock acquired through a pre-pack administration, including the proper approach to full and frank disclosure on without notice applications. 

  Conspiracy, deceit and fiduciary fraud

  • Infinity Developments Propco Ltd v Infinity Developments Holdings Ltd & Ors (CR-2023-004223, Insolvency and Companies List (ChD), 2026, led by Christopher Boardman KC of Radcliffe Chambers). Junior counsel at a seven-day civil fraud and insolvency trial in the Business and Property Courts, acting for the Applicant in claims arising from the collapse of a £50.5 million residential development at Lanyork Road, Liverpool. The claim challenges the validity of a lease and development management agreement said to have been granted by a company in administration, alleged to have been backdated and deployed to defeat the interests of the development’s investor purchasers, together with a purported onward assignment to an offshore entity. The proceedings raise allegations of document forgery, sham transactions, dishonest assistance and breach of fiduciary duty against the sole director of the development vehicle, together with statutory claims under sections 238 and 423 of the Insolvency Act 1986, the passing of privilege on the sale of a company’s assets, and contested extended disclosure under PD 57AD. Investor deposits totalling £29.5 million were paid into solicitors’ client account, of which approximately £10.86 million was misapplied by inter-company loan to connected entities and a further £7 million remains wholly unaccounted for. 
  • Specific disclosure application in multi-million pound fraud claim (Insolvency and Companies List, 2025, led by Christopher Boardman KC). Junior counsel in a specific disclosure application under PD 57AD against three respondents in a civil fraud claim concerning allegedly backdated lease and development management documents. Drafted the application, witness evidence and draft order, addressing inadequate de-duplication, unexplained redactions, missing metadata, inconsistent privilege claims over a solicitors’ email chain deployed in open court, and whether a dissolved company’s privilege passed to the Crown or to the claimant as successor in title.
  • Multi-defendant investment fraud claim – US$800,000 (Commercial Court). Instructed for the Claimants in a substantial multi-defendant civil fraud claim arising from an alleged US$800,000 investment fraud perpetrated through a UK-incorporated company. The claim involves parallel causes of action in deceit, breach of trust, breach of fiduciary duty and unjust enrichment against the corporate vehicle and its director personally, together with claims against a New York-based counterparty joined under the necessary or proper party gateway. The matter raises complex issues of governing law (the underlying agreements being governed by New York law), jurisdiction, cross-border asset tracing, and the personal liability of a company director as the directing mind of a fraudulent scheme.
  • Shareholder claim – fictitious US$275 million transaction by offshore technology company. Acting for a group of shareholders in a substantial claim arising from an alleged multi-year scheme of fraudulent misrepresentation by an offshore technology company and its CEO. The matter involves complex cross-border elements, contested jurisdiction, and concerns representations regarding a purported US$275 million transaction which has been exposed as fictitious following intervention by a major multinational corporation. The case raises significant issues concerning pre-action disclosure, Norwich Pharmacal relief against third parties, asset tracing and multi-party litigation. 
  • Tan & Anor v Lawrence (BL-2024-001821, led by David Lewis KC). Acting for the Defendant to allegations of fraudulent misrepresentation in a disputed US$15 million share acquisition in an international insurance company and related US$30 million loan facilities, raising the interplay between entire agreement and “no oral modification” provisions and fraud claims across the USA, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. 
  • Director’s personal liability for a disguised “phoenix” – deceit against homeowner. Acting for the claimant in a complex civil fraud claim against a construction company director personally, following allegations that he disguised the insolvent liquidation of his company as a “rebrand” in order to induce a homeowner to continue paying for defective building works. The matter combines fraudulent misrepresentation and the personal liability of a director for his own fraud with questions of contractual identity following a corporate “phoenix”, the consumer’s right to redress under the unfair trading regime, and the correct measure of loss in deceit. 
  • Shareholder group action – market abuse and unlawful means conspiracy (Commercial Court, 2026). Junior counsel (led by David Lewis KC) for approximately 400 investors in a multi-million pound group action arising from the collapse of an LSE-listed oil and gas company. The claim alleges an unlawful means conspiracy between a London-based hedge fund and the company’s directors, with the fund said to have short-sold ahead of market-moving announcements while converting bonds at ever-lower prices, and is brought alongside claims under section 90A and Schedule 10A FSMA and in deceit. 
  • Concealed extraction of c.£480,000 – conspiracy claim (ChD, unled). High Court civil fraud and unlawful means conspiracy claim for a minority shareholder against two directors and four connected companies concerning the concealed extraction of c.£480,000 through VAT-threshold-avoiding connected-party payments, resulting in the company’s liquidation; issues include reflective loss, personal rights under a shareholders’ agreement and loss-of-chance damages.
  • Regulated care provider – multi-party civil fraud. Advising and drafting for a regulated care provider in a multi-party civil fraud claim involving unlawful means conspiracy, dishonest assistance and breach of fiduciary duty arising from the diversion of business opportunities and confidential information to a competing enterprise. The matter engages complex questions of accessory liability and the fiduciary obligations of senior employees, alongside concurrent Employment Tribunal proceedings. 
  • Multi-party creditor claim – deceit and guarantees across four jurisdictions. Acts for a group of nine creditors in a substantial claim against an international media group and its principal, involving deceit, breach of contract, guarantee and share-based remuneration disputes spread across UK, Gibraltar, Netherlands and BVI entities; settled the group pleading and advised on interim relief and enforcement against a high-value London property.
  • Recruitment company v former CEO – diversion of opportunities. Sole counsel for a recruitment company against its former CEO and director for breach of fiduciary and statutory duties under sections 171 to 177 of the Companies Act 2006, involving the covert diversion of business opportunities and live client mandates to a competing business, misappropriation of confidential information and the destruction of company records. Secured judgment on liability and retained to lead the evidential and quantum case at the assessment of damages, building a documented incremental-margin loss model from the company’s management accounts. 

  Tracing, trusts and misappropriated funds

  • Re Orex Consultancy Ltd (in administration) [2025] EWHC 2830 (Ch). Acting unled for a director and creditor respondent in the trust and tracing phase of multi-party Chancery Division proceedings over the beneficial ownership of c.£5.7 million of administration realisations, following the alleged misappropriation of over £25 million from pension schemes. 
  • Litigation funder’s trust and asset recovery claim against administrators (High Court, B&PCs, 2026, unled). Instructed by an overseas litigation-funding SPV to lead the recovery of its interest in the proceeds of a substantial portfolio of consumer claims funded through a law firm that later entered administration. The matter turns on whether a pre-administration settlement agreement declared a trust over the firm’s rights under its damages-based agreements, the interaction of the Schedule B1 moratorium with a proposed Part 8 declaration, and priority and notice questions arising from the assignment of disputed rights to a connected party in the face of a known competing equitable claim, including potential challenges under sections 238 and 423 of the Insolvency Act 1986. Callum has reframed a narrow trust claim into a multi-track recovery strategy at the intersection of litigation funding, insolvency and asset recovery.
  • Trustee-directors’ self-dealing – breach of trust and account. Instructed for the claimant in a commercial trust and fiduciary duty dispute concerning the diversion of company funds by trustee-directors through a purported directors’ loan agreement, advancing claims in breach of trust, breach of fiduciary duty, constructive trust and unjust enrichment, and seeking a full trustee account and the setting aside of the impugned instrument. 
  • Hunt v Gokhool & Cole (PT-2025-000058, ChD, 2025). Acting unled for the claimant executor, secured judgment and indemnity costs removing from the register sham charges created by a defendant convicted of fraud in her dealings with the deceased, applying Snook and Schedule 4 of the Land Registration Act 2002. 

  Asset-stripping and transactions defrauding creditors

  • Multi-million pound liquidator’s claim – diversion of c.£10 million public-sector contract proceeds (2026, ongoing). Instructed by the liquidator of a long-established national installations contractor to draft pre-action correspondence and advise on a suite of civil fraud, knowing receipt and section 423 Insolvency Act 1986 claims arising from the diversion of the proceeds of a c.£10 million public-sector contract, including claims in unlawful means conspiracy and civil bribery against a procurement adviser said to have received secret commissions. 
  • Seven-figure asset-stripping claims – TUV, s.423 and trade mark infringement. Acting for joint liquidators in seven-figure claims combining transaction at undervalue, section 423 and trade mark infringement, centring on a brand allegedly sold to a connected company for £200 having been professionally valued within goodwill at £135,000, and pursued as a contingent claim through the purchaser’s members’ voluntary liquidation.
  • Bexheat Ltd (in liquidation) v Bailey (CR-2022-001547, ICC Judge Prentis). Acting unled for the joint liquidators in a claim exceeding £333,000 under section 127 of the Insolvency Act 1986 to recover dispositions made to the company’s sole director after presentation of a winding-up petition, including questions of tracing into onward corporate recipients. 

  The “real party”: non-party costs and enforcement

  • Anil Khera v Top Devs LLC & Others (BR-2025-000085). Instructed for the successful applicant in high-value, cross-border proceedings arising from statutory demands exceeding US$1 million, obtaining their set-aside with indemnity costs. Later secured a non-party costs order under section 51 of the Senior Courts Act 1981 against the foreign, asset-less corporate respondents’ controller, the Court holding him to be the “real party” to the litigation. 
  • Non-party and wasted costs against an insolvency practitioner (ICC List, unled). Pursuing non-party and wasted costs applications against an insolvency practitioner alleged to be the “real party” behind multi-million pound administration proceedings, involving disputed WhatsApp evidence, digital forensics and cross-examination at a costs hearing. 
• Company, Shareholder & Partnership Disputes

  Company, Shareholder & Partnership Disputes

  Company law is at the heart of Callum’s practice. He supervises undergraduates in Company Law at the University of Cambridge and brings that depth to a steady flow of shareholder, director and corporate governance disputes in the Insolvency and Companies List and the Business List. He acts for petitioners and respondents in unfair prejudice petitions, for companies and office-holders pursuing directors for breach of duty, and for founders, investors and executives in disputes over articles, shareholders’ agreements, pre-emption rights and leaver provisions.

  Callum is particularly experienced in disputes involving venture- and private equity-backed companies, where the construction of interlocking investment documents, “bad leaver” and compulsory conversion provisions, and the interplay with parallel Employment Tribunal proceedings are frequently in issue. He regularly advises on valuation, minority discount and quasi-partnership questions, and on pre-action strategy and litigation funding for seven-figure claims.

  Unfair prejudice and shareholder disputes

  • Re Wotter Group Ltd; Johnson v Wotter Group Ltd & Anor (CR-2026-003354). Acting unled for the company and its Chief Executive in a multi-million pound unfair prejudice petition under section 994 of the Companies Act 2006 in the Business and Property Courts, arising from a founder’s summary dismissal and the operation of “bad leaver” and compulsory share conversion provisions in a venture-backed technology company. The matter raises complex issues of quasi-partnership equity, directors’ duties and conflicts of interest under sections 171 to 177, the construction of interlocking shareholders’ agreements and articles of association, and contested share valuation, alongside parallel Employment Tribunal proceedings; the petitioner’s application for urgent interim injunctive relief was dismissed with indemnity costs.
  • Seneschall v Propiteer Ltd [2026] EWHC 1299 (Ch). Acting for the Third Defendant in a high-value shareholder dispute in the Insolvency and Companies List over control of a substantial property development group, raising complex issues as to the construction of pre-emption provisions in articles of association, the proprietary status of a shareholder’s rights arising on a deemed transfer notice, priority as against a subsequent transferee, and the validity of a declaration of trust. Instructed unled for the majority of the proceedings, including as sole counsel drafting the statements of case, and led by Andrew Grantham KC at the summary judgment stage, at which the Claimants’ application for summary judgment on the whole of the claim and counterclaim was successfully resisted, the Court holding that the client’s rights were more than merely personal; the matter proceeds to trial.
  • Guebli v Gray (CR-2026-001266, ICC (ChD)). Defending a £1.2 million unfair prejudice petition raising the ownership of pre-incorporation brand goodwill and intellectual property, an alleged partnership at will, undue influence, and the section 996 valuation discretion. 
  • Founder of PE-backed holiday lettings group – s.994 petition. Instructed for the founder and former chief executive of a private equity-backed holiday lettings group in a substantial unfair prejudice petition with a claim value in the region of £1–3 million. Callum settled the petition against six respondents (the company, three directors, an institutional investment fund and its fund manager) and advises on quasi-partnership valuation without minority discount, pre-action strategy and litigation funding. 
  • Minority stake in company valued at up to £10 million. Instructed as sole counsel in a multi-million pound shareholder dispute concerning a minority stake, advising on unfair prejudice under section 994, quasi-partnership principles following Ebrahimi v Westbourne Galleries, share valuation and minority discount issues, and the strategic conduct of a seven figure claim from pre-action through to petition.
  • Minority shareholder conspiracy claim (ChD, unled). Civil fraud and unlawful means conspiracy claim for a minority shareholder against two directors and four connected companies concerning the concealed extraction of c.£480,000, raising reflective loss, personal rights under a shareholders’ agreement and loss-of-chance damages.
  • Unfair prejudice – vehicle-tracking technology company. Drafted the letter before action and advised a minority shareholder in a successful car tracking business alleging systematic breach of the shareholders’ agreement through connected party payments totalling six figures, applying the O’Neill v Phillips framework and Ebrahimi quasi-partnership principles, and challenging improper dividend policy and breaches of competing business restrictions.
  • Minority shareholder rights – publicly listed company. Advised on an unfair prejudice claim under section 994 of the Companies Act 2006 involving systematic exclusion from management despite partnership-like understandings and differential treatment in relation to share loan agreements.
  • Just and equitable winding-up petition – s.122(1)(g) Insolvency Act 1986. Strategic advice on a just and equitable winding-up petition as the ultimate remedy where a breakdown in mutual confidence rendered continued association impossible, analysing the relationship between unfair prejudice proceedings and the winding-up jurisdiction, quasi-partnership characteristics, deadlock and the interaction with section 125 of the Companies Act 2006.
  • Pre-emption rights and beneficial interests – nominee shareholdings (High Court). Conducted the defence and counterclaim involving automatic Article 13 pre-emption provisions, the enforceability of a declaration of trust in a nominee structure and the effect of charging orders on share transfer rights, requiring analysis of administration triggering events for group companies, a receiver’s powers subject to contractual restrictions and time limits for pre-emption rights under the articles.
  • Shareholder claim – fictitious US$275 million transaction by offshore technology company. Acting for a group of shareholders in a cross-border fraudulent misrepresentation claim against an offshore technology company and its CEO, raising pre-action disclosure, Norwich Pharmacal relief and asset tracing. 

  Directors’ duties, misfeasance and corporate governance

  • Recruitment company v former CEO – ss.171–177 Companies Act 2006. Acted as sole counsel for a recruitment company in a claim against its former CEO and director for breach of fiduciary and statutory duties, involving the covert diversion of business opportunities, misappropriation of confidential information and the incorporation of a competing company while still in office. Callum drafted the particulars of claim, advised throughout on liability, quantum and the account of profits remedy, secured judgment for the claimant with damages to be assessed, and was retained to lead the claimant’s evidential and quantum case at the assessment of damages. 
  • Beneficial shareholding in property investment company – self-dealing directors. Currently instructed for the claimant beneficiary in a dispute concerning a one-third beneficial shareholding in a property investment company, where the trustee directors drew six-figure interest-free loans from the company without the beneficiary’s consent. The matter combines self-dealing and breach of trust, the construction of interlocking settlement, guarantee and dissolution instruments, waiver and release defences, and claims to a trustee’s account and contractual indemnities.
  • Assigned misfeasance claims – Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015. Advising a litigation funder, unled, on assigned office-holder claims arising from the liquidation of a leisure operator, and in particular whether a deed assigning claims in “misfeasance” carries with it the underlying claims for breach of directors’ duties.
  • Corporate governance dispute – property management company (High Court, Part 8). Defended a Part 8 claim concerning invalid board resolutions and director appointments, with particular focus on the section 633 Companies Act 2006 requirements for the variation of class rights, challenging “without notice” applications lacking proper urgency and securing statutory freezes on the effectiveness of purported variations pending judicial determination.
  • Multi-million pound property group – injunction to restrain seizure of corporate control. Urgent interim relief preventing an allegedly unlawful seizure of control of a property development group with eight-figure assets, following procedurally defective general meetings; the status quo was preserved pending determination of the underlying ownership dispute. 
  • Emergency corporate succession – death of sole director and shareholder. Urgent advice on the appointment of a director following the unexpected intestate death of a company’s sole shareholder and director, applying bespoke article provisions distinguishing a “transmittee” from a “personal representative”, avoiding a section 125 Companies Act 2006 court application and ensuring corporate continuity and Companies House compliance.

  Leaver provisions, incentive plans and executive equity

  • PE management incentive plan – worldwide covenants and equity forfeiture. Advised a departing senior executive and their incoming employer in a multi-million pound dispute arising from worldwide restrictive covenants and equity forfeiture provisions under a private equity-backed management incentive plan. The advice addressed the enforceability of group-wide restraints against a divisional executive, the standard of scrutiny applicable to covenants in investment agreements rather than contracts of employment, and the retrospective reclassification and clawback provisions governing the executive’s shareholding. 
  • Technology services and equity investment dispute – Advanced Subscription Agreement (led by David Lewis KC). Debt versus damages in respect of unallotted equity subscriptions (Grewal v Chakraborty) within a £3.25 million+ composite commercial arrangement with an Abu Dhabi financial services group.
• Insolvency & Restructuring

  Insolvency & Restructuring

  Insolvency is one of the largest parts of Callum’s practice. He appears regularly, and almost always unled, in the Insolvency and Companies List for liquidators, administrators, trustees in bankruptcy, creditors, directors and litigation funders. His work spans the full range of office-holder claims (sections 127, 212, 238, 239 and 423 of the Insolvency Act 1986), statutory demands, winding-up and bankruptcy petitions, annulments, removal applications and directions, together with the contentious cross-over areas in which he specialises: insolvency and intellectual property, construction insolvency, and insolvency-driven asset recovery.

  Callum also has a developing cross-border and offshore practice, having drafted proceedings in the Royal Court of Jersey and acted in matters involving Gibraltar, BVI, Dutch and Nigerian entities, and is increasingly instructed by funders and assignees of office-holder claims. He is comfortable with the forensic accounting that insolvency litigation demands, from Sage ledgers and running accounts to incremental-margin loss models.

  Office-holder claims and antecedent transactions

  • Retrospective administration order and administrator misconduct (CR-2024-000325, High Court, Business and Property Courts, 2026, unled). Successfully obtained a rare retrospective administration order under paragraph 13(2) of Schedule B1 to the Insolvency Act 1986, acting for the principal unconnected unsecured creditor of a cryptocurrency and AI technology company. The application arose from the former administrators’ filing of a dissolution notice whilst on notice of extant removal proceedings, which prematurely brought the administration to an end and left the company facing automatic dissolution. Retrospective administration orders are made only in exceptional circumstances and with what the courts have repeatedly described as “extreme caution”, requiring the applicant to navigate the 364-day limitation, the prohibition on post-expiry extensions under paragraph 77(1)(b), and a demanding discretionary assessment. Persuaded the court to backdate the appointment of new administrators, disapply the dissolution period under paragraph 84(6), and suspend the former administrators’ discharge from liability under paragraph 98, thereby preserving the ability to investigate serious concerns regarding a connected-party pre-pack sale, the misclassification of assets, and the treatment of cryptocurrency tokens recorded in the company’s accounts at a value exceeding tens of millions of pounds. 
  • Infinity Developments Propco Ltd v Infinity Developments Holdings Ltd & Ors (CR-2023-004223, led by Christopher Boardman KC). Junior counsel at a seven-day trial in the Insolvency and Companies List concerning allegedly backdated lease and development management documents granted by a company in administration, with claims under sections 238 and 423 of the Insolvency Act 1986, following the collapse of a £50.5 million Liverpool residential development. 
  • Liquidator’s claims – diversion of c.£10 million public-sector contract proceeds (2026). Advising the liquidator of a national installations contractor on civil fraud, knowing receipt, section 423, unlawful means conspiracy and civil bribery claims against connected parties and a procurement adviser said to have received secret commissions. 
  • Payment Card Technologies (Retail) Ltd and Tuxedo Money Plus Ltd v PayrNet Ltd (CR-2025-001851; CR-2025-001854). Acting for the joint liquidators in substantial applications in the Insolvency and Companies List against a regulated electronic money institution concerning the safeguarding and reconciliation of cardholder e-money, in which over £2.3 million has been recovered for the estates to date and a further seven-figure claim is listed for determination in 2027.
  • Bexheat Ltd (in liquidation) v Bailey (CR-2022-001547, ICC Judge Prentis). Acting unled for the joint liquidators in a claim exceeding £333,000 under section 127 of the Insolvency Act 1986 to recover dispositions made to the company’s sole director after presentation of a winding-up petition, heard over a full day together with the director’s cross-application to strike out. The case raised the interaction between section 127 and the discharge regime in sections 281 to 382, and in particular whether a claim to recover void dispositions from a fiduciary recipient is proprietary in nature, falling outside the bankrupt’s estate under section 283(3)(a), or a personal restitutionary claim released on discharge, together with questions of tracing into onward corporate recipients and the constitution of section 127 proceedings.
  • Seven-figure asset-stripping claims – TUV, s.423 and trade mark infringement. Acting for joint liquidators in claims combining transaction at undervalue, section 423 and trade mark infringement, centring on a brand allegedly sold to a connected company for £200 having been professionally valued within goodwill at £135,000, and pursued as a contingent claim through the purchaser’s members’ voluntary liquidation.
  • Re Orex Consultancy Ltd (in administration) [2025] EWHC 2830 (Ch). Acting unled for a director and creditor respondent in the trust and tracing phase of multi-party proceedings over the beneficial ownership of c.£5.7 million of administration realisations, following the alleged misappropriation of over £25 million from pension schemes. 
  • Overdrawn directors’ loan accounts – statutory demands exceeding £223,000. Acted for joint liquidators in resisting two linked applications to set aside statutory demands arising from overdrawn directors’ loan accounts. The applications raised whether payments routed through the directors’ personal service companies and a group holding structure could be characterised as company loans, involving detailed analysis of the company’s Sage nominal ledgers, the appropriation of credits on a running account and the treatment of intra-group dividends. Related claims concerning further payments of over £510,000 were reserved.
  • Assigned office-holder claims. Advising a litigation funder, unled, on assigned claims arising from the liquidation of a leisure operator, including the scope of assignments under the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 and whether a deed assigning claims in “misfeasance” carries the underlying claims for breach of directors’ duties.
  • Litigation funder’s trust claim against administrators (2026, unled). Leading the recovery of an overseas funding SPV’s interest in the proceeds of consumer claims funded through a law firm in administration, engaging the Schedule B1 moratorium, Part 8 declaratory relief, priority and notice on the assignment of disputed rights to a connected party, and potential challenges under sections 238 and 423. 

  Challenges to office-holders: removal, directions and interim relief

  • Re Biwater Holdings Ltd and Biwater International Ltd (in compulsory liquidation) [court reference to be added] (unled). Acting for two Luxembourg investment funds with claims exceeding £72 million in the liquidations of an international water-engineering group, on an application to remove the joint liquidators under section 172(2) of the Insolvency Act 1986 and for urgent interim relief under sections 167(3) and 168(5) to restrain completion of a contested intellectual property sale pending a court-supervised comparison with a competing offer. 

  Statutory demands, petitions and annulment

  • Anil Khera v Top Devs LLC & Others (BR-2025-000085). Instructed for the successful applicant in cross-border proceedings arising from statutory demands exceeding US$1 million, obtaining their set-aside with indemnity costs, and later a non-party costs order under section 51 of the Senior Courts Act 1981 against the foreign corporate respondents’ controller as the “real party”. 
  • Annulment of bankruptcy order (County Court at Central London, 0505 of 2026, unled). Successfully annulled a bankruptcy order under section 282(1)(a) of the Insolvency Act 1986 founded on a six-figure directors’ loan account claim which had already reduced from £432,056 to £175,396 before presentation, establishing on the Kekhman framework that the petition debt raised a genuine triable issue never put before the court which made the order.
  • £3 million personal guarantee dispute (ICC List). Acting for the applicant concerning overstated statutory demands, “conclusive evidence” clauses, and the court’s residual discretion where a creditor pursues a guarantor while enforcing undisclosed security. 
  • International statutory demand set-aside with non-party costs (High Court). Successfully set aside three statutory demands served by Canadian entities totalling six figures, establishing a substantial dispute over the characterisation of payments as loans or investments in US property ventures, and secured a non-party costs order under section 51 of the Senior Courts Act 1981 against the controlling individual as the “real party” to the litigation. 
  • Construction industry creditor’s petition (High Court). Pursued a winding-up petition for a six-figure debt in the face of challenges based on alleged contractual variations and procedural non-compliance, applying the Angel Group principles to distinguish genuine disputes from a “cloud of objections” and analysing the section 113 prohibition on “pay when paid” clauses under the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996.
  • Directors’ loan account – bankruptcy petition (County Court). Successfully pursued a bankruptcy petition against a company director for a substantial five-figure overdrawn directors’ loan account following the company’s creditors’ voluntary liquidation, applying the section 271 reasonable prospect test and distinguishing Re Maud and Sekhon v Edginton on the debtor’s unsubstantiated remortgage proposals and claims of property equity.
  • Restraint of winding-up petition. Obtained an undertaking from the respondent not to present a winding-up petition pending the final hearing of the underlying commercial dispute, securing a structured timetable and breathing space for its resolution. 
  • Vesting orders – s.181 Insolvency Act 1986 (High Court). Appeared in applications for vesting orders in respect of vehicles worth a substantial five-figure sum, where the client had paid full consideration but received no possession following corporate disclaimers.

  Trustees in bankruptcy and personal insolvency

  • Section 298 removal application – joint trustees in bankruptcy (High Court). Currently defends joint trustees in bankruptcy against a section 298 removal application raising office-holder independence, the standing of a bankrupt with no prospect of a surplus, and the use of material subject to Family Court confidentiality. 
  • Indefinite suspension of discharge (High Court). Secured a rare indefinite suspension of discharge for calculated non-compliance with bankruptcy obligations, applying Harris v Official Receiver on successive suspension orders and Brittain v Ferster on “unconscionable disrespect” for statutory obligations, and establishing a pattern of superficial compliance while crucial estate information was systematically withheld and the bankrupt expressed an intention to dispose of estate assets.
  • Removal of bankrupt trustee – family trust (High Court). Appeared in a removal application concerning the bankrupt trustee of a family trust holding substantial six-figure proceeds, applying the Letterstedt v Broers welfare principles and section 41 of the Trustee Act 1925, and the Re Tempest guidelines on conflicts of interest and the appointment of beneficiary family members. 
  • Annulment of bankruptcy order. See above: annulment under section 282(1)(a) on the Kekhman framework where the petition debt had reduced from £432,056 to £175,396 before presentation.

  Advice to office-holders

  • Guarantor subrogation rights and liquidators’ duties. Advised on a liquidator’s duties regarding notification of a guarantor’s subrogation rights in the distribution of assets, the automatic operation of subrogation, liquidators’ duties to non-creditors and contractual sequencing provisions preventing the assertion of rights until the primary creditor is satisfied.
  • Invoice financing surplus – cross-entity set-off. Advised a liquidator on the recovery of a substantial five-figure surplus held by an invoice financing company where the banking group asserted cross-entity set-off rights. 
  • Construction retention monies – Rule 14.25 set-off. Advised a liquidator on the recovery of retention monies held by contractors following liquidation, applying the automatic set-off provisions of Rule 14.25 of the Insolvency Rules 2016, the exceptions for special purpose trusts and subcontractor protections, and enforcement by adjudication.

  Insolvency and intellectual property

  • Big Drop Brewing Company Ltd v GBDC Ltd (IL-2026-000015). Urgent injunctive relief restraining the sale of trade marked stock acquired through a pre-pack administration, raising exhaustion of rights under section 12 of the Trade Marks Act 1994 and the extent of the title capable of being transferred by administrators on a pre-pack sale. 

  Construction insolvency

  • Administrators’ construction recovery strategy – £65 million residential development (2026). Advising the joint administrators of an insolvent main contractor on the recovery of retention and final account entitlements from a registered housing provider under an amended JCT Design and Build Contract 2016, following termination of a £65 million residential development, including the effect of a £6.5 million performance bond call on the estate’s recoveries and the enforcement of adjudication awards by companies in administration following Bresco and John Doyle. 
  • Joint administrators of groundworks contractor – £3 million+ book debt recovery. Advising on a book debt recovery strategy against national housebuilders and on the preservation of layered professional indemnity cover in run-off to protect realisations and the distribution fund. The advice engaged the Construction Act payment regime, the validity of pay less notices served on an insolvent contractor, and the availability and enforcement of adjudication by companies in administration. 
  • Liquidator of building contractor – JCT retention monies. Advising on the recovery of retention monies under a JCT contract arising out of a residential development with a contract sum in excess of £1.25 million, following the employer’s purported termination on insolvency, engaging certification and final account machinery, insolvency set-off, and the restrictions on adjudication and enforcement by companies in liquidation following Bresco v Lonsdale and John Doyle v Erith. 
  • Invoice finance provider – assigned sub-contract debts. Instructed in a construction payment dispute exceeding £300,000 concerning three assigned sub-contract debts and a substantial set-off claim, raising the interaction between the “smash and grab” notified-sum regime and insolvency set-off following the sub-contractor’s liquidation. 

  Cross-border and offshore insolvency

  • Claims against Jersey joint liquidators personally – UK waterfront development (sole counsel). Instructed as sole counsel in a series of connected six-figure commercial and insolvency claims arising out of a major UK waterfront development, including novel claims against the joint liquidators of a Jersey company personally, and their UK advisory firm, for post-appointment services rendered to the liquidation estate. The matter engages the interplay between the Jersey creditors’ winding up regime, the moratorium on claims against companies in liquidation, officeholder personal liability and quantum meruit, together with complex questions of governing law and jurisdiction as between the English courts and the Royal Court of Jersey. 
  • Cross-border liquidator removal – Jersey holding company (Royal Court of Jersey). Drafting an ex parte Representation to the Royal Court of Jersey for the removal of joint liquidators under Article 175 of the Companies (Jersey) Law 1991 and for directions restraining a secured creditor’s proposed credit bid for the communal infrastructure of a major Edinburgh waterfront regeneration estate. The matter spans three legal systems, engaging Jersey insolvency law, Scots law as the lex situs of the heritable subjects, and English contractual and evidential issues, alongside allegations of directorship by conduct and trading whilst insolvent. 
• Construction & Engineering

  Construction & Engineering

  Callum’s construction practice is informed by his time as an assistant quantity surveyor before coming to the Bar and by his current seat on the board of a construction company. He acts for employers, main contractors, specialist subcontractors, funders and insolvency office-holders in the Technology and Construction Court, in adjudication and adjudication enforcement, and in arbitration, and is instructed at every stage from payment notice strategy and pre-action correspondence to trial.

  He has particular expertise in the payment provisions of Part II of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 and the Scheme for Construction Contracts, in JCT and EPC contracts, and in construction insolvency, where the interaction between adjudication, insolvency set-off and the Bresco and John Doyle line of authority is frequently determinative. He also advises on the professional negligence and insurance issues that arise from defective work and failed projects.

  Adjudication and enforcement

  • Adjudication enforcement – £530,000 JCT Design and Build Contract 2024 (TCC). Instructed by a packaging manufacturer to enforce an adjudicator’s decision in its favour following a true-value adjudication under the Scheme, arising from the contested termination of a JCT Design and Build Contract for a warehouse extension and involving a termination account of some £270,000, disputed practical completion, liquidated damages and over sixty alleged defects. Advised on the enforceability of the decision, VAT, the treatment of the adjudicator’s fees and the appropriate forum, and drafted the Particulars of Claim, evidence and directions order for expedited summary judgment under the TCC’s adjudication enforcement procedure.
  • Multi-phase commercial solar PV installation – EPC disputes exceeding £1.5 million. Currently instructed as sole counsel by an employer in the renewable energy sector in a series of interlinked disputes arising from EPC contracts, engaging successive adjudications under the Scheme, liquidated damages and contractual interpretation issues, the Construction Act payment notice regime, high-value defects claims, and questions of settlement and compromise, alongside a substantial parallel VAT recovery. 

  Payment, variations and final accounts

  • Mechanical and pipework subcontractor – City of London commercial development (TCC). Instructed in a claim approaching £100,000 against a main contractor arising out of the LTHW and chilled water installations at a City of London commercial development, concerning the valuation of seventeen disputed variations, competing quotation and purchase order terms across six phased subcontracts, and the operation of the payment provisions of Part II of the 1996 Act. Advising on statements of case, forum and the implications of the extended fixed recoverable costs regime, and instructed to conduct the claim in the Technology and Construction list.
  • Invoice finance provider – assigned sub-contract debts exceeding £300,000. Instructed in a construction payment dispute concerning three assigned sub-contract debts and a substantial set-off claim for defects and overpayment, raising the interaction between the “smash and grab” notified-sum regime and insolvency set-off following the sub-contractor’s liquidation, together with issues of assignment, apparent authority and a contested arbitration jurisdiction objection. 
  • Glazing contractor – contested final payment and variations trial. Successfully represented a glazing contractor at a contested trial concerning final payment and variations, where the defendant withheld payment alleging that defects prevented completion. Established substantial performance under Hoenig v Isaacs, that the refusal to permit remedial works was a failure to mitigate (Woodlands Oak), that variations were authorised through implied actual authority and that the contractual interest provisions survived consumer protection legislation. Secured judgment despite expert evidence favouring aspects of the counterclaim, defeated late amendments to the Defence, obtained dismissal of the water ingress counterclaim and was awarded indemnity costs.
  • Luxury residential development – JCT Design and Build (2025). Assisted on the Letter of Response in a high-value residential development dispute under JCT Design and Build terms, addressing allegations of planning discrepancies, material substitutions and delay, with claimed damages of between £900,000 and £2 million.
  • Specialist subcontractor termination dispute (2025). Instructed in a pre-action dispute concerning the purported termination of a specialist subcontractor and a six-figure damages claim, raising the validity of a termination notice issued before contract formation, non-compliance with contractual termination mechanisms and contested technical evidence on concrete quality standards.
  • Heavy plant hire – equipment damage claim (2024). Drafted Particulars of Claim concerning damage to three pieces of heavy plant machinery hired under standard industry agreements, requiring technical analysis of mechanical damage and the contractual allocation of responsibility for maintenance, notification and repair costs.
  • Borehole water filtration system – defence of plumbing contractor. Instructed to defend a plumbing contractor in a residential dispute concerning the installation of a water filtration system for a property with a private borehole supply; drafted the Defence to technical allegations of defective installation and improper specification, involving water treatment, borehole pump and pressure system issues.
  • Construction industry creditor’s petition. Winding-up petition for a six-figure construction debt engaging the section 113 prohibition on “pay when paid” clauses.

  Construction insolvency

  • Administrators’ construction recovery strategy – £65 million residential development (2026). Advising the joint administrators of an insolvent main contractor on the recovery of retention and final account entitlements from a registered housing provider under an amended JCT Design and Build Contract 2016, following termination of a £65 million residential development. Advised on the treatment of sums due at the date of administration, the effect of a £6.5 million performance bond call on the estate’s recoveries, the authority of company officers to bind the company post-appointment, and the enforcement of adjudication awards by companies in administration following Bresco and John Doyle. Drafted all pre-action correspondence under the Construction and Engineering Protocol. 
  • Joint administrators of groundworks contractor – £3 million+ recovery strategy. Advising on book debt recovery against national housebuilders and the preservation of layered professional indemnity cover in run-off, engaging the validity of pay less notices served on an insolvent contractor and the availability and enforcement of adjudication by companies in administration. 
  • Liquidator of building contractor – JCT retention monies (£1.25 million contract sum). Advising on recovery of retention following purported termination on insolvency, engaging certification and final account machinery, insolvency set-off and the restrictions on adjudication by companies in liquidation following Bresco v Lonsdale and John Doyle v Erith. 
  • Freezing relief – seven-figure residential development arbitration. Advising on freezing injunction relief under section 44 of the Arbitration Act 1996 in support of a confidential arbitration concerning a residential development, including a disputed payment waterfall and VAT liability. 
  • Director’s personal liability for a disguised “phoenix” – defective building works. Civil fraud claim against a construction company director personally who is alleged to have presented his company’s insolvent liquidation as a “rebrand” to induce a homeowner to continue paying for defective works. 

  Professional negligence and insurance

  • Defence of specialist quantity surveyor – Central London developments (2024). Instructed to defend a specialist construction quantity surveyor in a substantial professional negligence claim relating to two high-value commercial development projects in Central London. Drafted the Letter of Response under the Professional Negligence Pre-Action Protocol addressing allegations regarding fee calculations and professional services across multiple sites; a favourable settlement was negotiated immediately following the Letter of Response. 
  • Structural defects warranty claims exceeding £1.5 million (2025). Detailed advice on a multi-property construction dispute involving warranty claims and potential subrogated recovery, concerning the interlocking contractual arrangements between developers, contractors and insurers: temporal limits on liability under specialist warranty schemes, subrogation where the contractor has been dissolved, the effect of settlement agreements on subsequent insurance recovery, arbitration provisions and technical causation for alleged structural defects. 
  • Preservation of professional indemnity cover in run-off. Advice to administrators of a groundworks contractor on protecting layered PI cover to safeguard realisations. 
  • London art gallery v national self-storage group – fire destroying artworks worth over £2.7 million (TCC-bound). Sole counsel for the gallery in a high six-figure claim raising negligence, fire safety regulation, UCTA 1977 and group company liability. 
• Property & Real Estate

  Property & Real Estate

  Callum’s property work arises naturally from his commercial, insolvency and fraud practice, and he is increasingly instructed in property disputes in their own right. He acts for commercial landlords and tenants, lenders and borrowers, developers, investors and office-holders in the Business and Property Courts, the County Court and the Valuation Tribunal, with an emphasis on disputes where property sits alongside a wider commercial or insolvency problem: secured lending enforcement, beneficial ownership and trusts of land, sham or disputed charges, property development groups and joint ventures, and the property consequences of freezing and proprietary relief.

  He also has experience of non-domestic rating and of section 106 and development-related claims, and brings his construction background to disputes concerning development sites and part-built schemes.

  He also advises landowners and site providers on disputes under the Electronic Communications Code, and acts in development-related commission and unjust enrichment claims.

  Commercial landlord and tenant

  • Security for costs of £75,000 in relief from forfeiture claim. Obtained security for costs of £75,000 plus costs for commercial landlords in a relief from forfeiture claim, successfully arguing that a claimant’s reliance on undisclosed legal expenses insurance was no answer to the application where the policy terms had never been produced. 
  • Levinson v Cross [2025] EWHC 3148 (Ch). Successfully represented the respondent leaseholder in urgent injunction proceedings before Richard Smith J concerning an asserted common law right of personal representatives to enter private property to search for a deceased’s remains; injunction refused and costs awarded. 
  • Service charge fraud dispute – First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) (2025). Drafted comprehensive submissions in a dispute concerning a property converted from two flats into one, with a particular focus on fraud allegations: the construction of service charge provisions in the context of fraudulent misrepresentation, temporal construction where fraud is alleged, recent Supreme Court authority on fixed service charge terms and estoppel arguments based on the directors’ conduct.

  Mortgages, charges and secured lending enforcement

  • Secured lending and guarantee enforcement – defaulted facility agreement (unled). Advising a commercial lender on the optimal strategy for enforcing a defaulted secured term loan facility, with over £210,000 and rising secured against residential property through a multi-layered security package comprising a corporate borrower, cross-guarantees and indemnities from two individuals, and a third-party registered legal charge. The advice engaged the statutory and extended powers of sale under the Law of Property Act 1925, the enforceability of third-party security given by a non-commercial surety, and the comparative merits of possession proceedings, court-directed sale, receivership and corporate and personal insolvency routes, together with drafting the pre-action enforcement suite. 
  • Hunt v Gokhool & Cole (PT-2025-000058, High Court, ChD, 2025). Successfully represented the claimant executor, unled, in a property dispute concerning sham charges registered against property. The First Defendant had been convicted of fraud in connection with her dealings with the deceased and had registered charges in favour of the Second Defendant to frustrate legitimate claims. Established that the charges were shams under Snook v London & West Riding Investments, that their registration was a “mistake” under Schedule 4 of the Land Registration Act 2002, that they were void ab initio rather than voidable, and that the Court had jurisdiction to order their removal despite the Second Defendant’s non-attendance. Secured full judgment with an order removing both charges and indemnity costs.
  • Proprietary and freezing injunction proceedings – £7.2 million loan facilities (London Circuit Commercial Court, 2026). Proprietary and freezing injunction proceedings arising from loan facilities exceeding £7.2 million, including the effect of a separation agreement on transfers of registered land and the position of non-parties holding assets caught by the order. 

  Trusts of land, beneficial ownership and property companies

  • Seneschall v Propiteer Ltd [2026] EWHC 1299 (Ch). High-value dispute over control of a substantial property development group, raising pre-emption provisions, the proprietary status of a shareholder’s rights on a deemed transfer notice, priority against a subsequent transferee and the validity of a declaration of trust.
  • Beneficial shareholding in property investment company. Acting for the claimant beneficiary of a one-third beneficial shareholding in a property investment company against trustee directors who drew six-figure interest-free loans without consent, combining self-dealing, breach of trust, waiver and release defences and claims to a trustee’s account. 
  • Cross-border liquidator removal – Edinburgh waterfront regeneration estate. Drafting proceedings in the Royal Court of Jersey for directions restraining a secured creditor’s proposed credit bid for the communal infrastructure of a major regeneration estate, engaging Scots law as the lex situs of the heritable subjects. 

  Development, joint ventures and section 106

  • Property commission and unjust enrichment dispute – development site with GDV exceeding £4 million (2025–2026, pre-action, unled). Instructed to advise and draft pre-action correspondence for defendants in a high-value dispute concerning an alleged commission entitlement and unjust enrichment claim arising from the planning promotion and proposed disposal of a residential development site with a gross development value estimated in excess of £4 million. The matter raised sophisticated questions of contract formation, corporate identity, co-ownership, and the boundaries of restitutionary relief, in a factually complex dispute involving a multi-year planning promotion exercise and competing offers from residential developers.
  • Infinity Developments Propco Ltd v Infinity Developments Holdings Ltd & Ors (CR-2023-004223, led by Christopher Boardman KC). Seven-day trial concerning the validity of an allegedly backdated lease and development management agreement over a stalled £50.5 million Liverpool residential development, and investor deposits of £29.5 million.
  • Affordable housing contribution under a s.106 agreement – c.£1.4 million (2024). Junior counsel (led by Jonathan Titmuss) advising on the recovery of a substantial affordable housing contribution under a section 106 agreement, involving intricate corporate structures in which the original landowner had retained part of the land, the developer had entered creditors’ voluntary liquidation, multiple transfers had occurred at apparent undervalue and a BVI company sat in the ownership structure; issues included jurisdiction over overseas entities and the construction of exclusion clauses in the agreement. 
  • Property development joint venture dispute (2025, unled). Drafted Particulars of Claim in a joint venture dispute between developers of a high-value residential conversion project, involving allegations of financial misreporting and failure to account, secret profits and undisclosed contract arrangements, and enforcement of profit-sharing obligations, combining express contractual obligations with implied partnership duties and seeking specific performance, an account of profits and equitable compensation. 
  • Estate agent’s under-market sale – breach of fiduciary duty. Drafted Particulars of Claim in an estate agency dispute concerning the sale of residential property at a significant undervalue, where the agent was alleged to have purchased through a connected company in breach of duties of loyalty, disclosure and good faith, with concurrent claims in contract, tort and equity. 
  • Property acquisition commission dispute (2024). Pre-action correspondence applying estate agency “effective cause” principles to commission on high-value acquisitions; settled on receipt of the letter before action. 

  Rating

  • Deletion from the 2023 rating list – demolished 5,185 sq m warehouse and office complex. Acting for the ratepayer in a challenge to the effective date of deletion following demolition of a property acquired for redevelopment. The case concerns whether a property stripped of essential services and already opened up by pre-acquisition intrusive survey works was capable of beneficial occupation, and engages the statutory repairing assumption under paragraph 2(1)(b) of Schedule 6 to the Local Government Finance Act 1988 and the reality principle in Newbigin (VO) v Monk. Sums in issue exceed £250,000.

  Telecommunications and the Electronic Communications Code

  • Electronic Communications Code dispute – telecommunications mast site (2026, advisory, unled). Instructed to advise a landowner in a substantive dispute under the Electronic Communications Code (Schedule 3A, Communications Act 2003) arising out of a 10-year Code agreement for a telecommunications mast site. The operators, two national mobile network operators acting through leading national solicitors, alleged breach of the access, works and non-obstruction covenants and threatened declaratory relief and damages before the Upper Tribunal. The matter required detailed construction of the Code agreement against the statutory framework, analysis of the strict-construction principle in Cornerstone v Compton Beauchamp Estates Ltd [2019] UKUT 107 (LC), and forensic use of the contemporaneous engrossment correspondence to defeat the alleged breaches at pre-action stage.
• Banking, Finance & Secured Lending

  Banking, Finance & Secured Lending

  Callum acts for lenders, borrowers, guarantors, invoice financiers, litigation funders and office-holders in disputes concerning facility agreements, guarantees and indemnities, security over land and shares, safeguarding of client and cardholder funds, and regulated lending. His work in this area draws together his commercial, property and insolvency expertise: many instructions involve the choice between contractual, possession, receivership and insolvency enforcement routes, or the treatment of secured and guaranteed debt in an insolvency.

  He is also experienced in claims engaging the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, including sections 26 and 27 (agreements made through unauthorised persons) and section 90A and Schedule 10A (issuer liability), and in the regulatory and safeguarding framework applicable to electronic money institutions.

  Recent work

  • Payment Card Technologies (Retail) Ltd and Tuxedo Money Plus Ltd v PayrNet Ltd (CR-2025-001851; CR-2025-001854). Acting for the joint liquidators in substantial applications against a regulated electronic money institution concerning the safeguarding and reconciliation of cardholder e-money; over £2.3 million recovered to date and a further seven-figure claim listed for 2027.
  • Term sheet dispute – £5.93 million bridge facility (Claim No. N9QZ4G3P, 2026, unled). Acting for a Cayman-domiciled credit fund on the enforceability of the binding provisions of a subject to contract term sheet for a bridge facility; drafted the Particulars of Claim and settled a CPR Part 24 summary judgment application on partly binding preliminary agreements and intention to create legal relations. 
  • Tan & Anor v Lawrence (BL-2024-001821, led by David Lewis KC). Disputed US$15 million share acquisition and related US$30 million loan facilities, engaging “no oral modification” and entire agreement clauses alongside allegations of fraudulent misrepresentation.
  • £7.25 million share charge enforcement claim (Business List (ChD), 2026, unled). Defending a claim for payment, damages and specific performance on a share charge over shares in an offshore company held through nominee and declaration of trust structures, engaging the construction of security instruments, perfection of security over foreign shares and penalty default interest. 
  • Secured lending and guarantee enforcement – defaulted facility agreement. Advising a commercial lender on the enforcement of a defaulted secured term loan facility through a multi-layered security package, including LPA 1925 powers of sale, third-party surety issues and the comparative merits of possession, court-directed sale, receivership and insolvency routes. 
  • £3 million personal guarantee dispute (ICC List). Overstated statutory demands, “conclusive evidence” clauses and the court’s discretion where a creditor pursues a guarantor while enforcing undisclosed security.
  • Proprietary and freezing injunction proceedings – £7.2 million loan facilities (London Circuit Commercial Court, 2026). Proprietary and freezing relief arising from alleged defaults under loan facilities exceeding £7.2 million and disputed guarantees said to bind an investment LLP. 
  • Shareholder group action – s.90A FSMA and conspiracy (Commercial Court). Junior counsel (led by David Lewis KC) for approximately 400 investors following the collapse of an LSE-listed oil and gas company, alleging conspiracy between a hedge fund and the directors alongside claims under section 90A and Schedule 10A FSMA.
  • Unsecured short-term lending scheme – ss.26 and 27 FSMA. Defending a professional against a claim approaching £1 million by high net worth investors arising from a lending scheme said to have been operated through the firm engaging him.
  • Invoice finance provider – assigned construction debts. Acting for an invoice financier on three assigned sub-contract debts exceeding £300,000, raising assignment, apparent authority and insolvency set-off. 
  • Non-performing loan recovery – US$11 million+ LCIA arbitration. Acting for an asset recovery consultancy against a major Nigerian bank in relation to commission on the recovery of non-performing loans in the oil and gas sector. 
  • Guarantor subrogation and invoice financing surplus. Advised on a guarantor’s subrogation rights and a liquidator’s notification duties, and on the recovery of a surplus from an invoice financier.
• Employment & Executive Disputes

  Employment & Executive Disputes

  Callum’s employment practice is focused on the High Court end of the market: senior executives, founders and their employers in disputes over restrictive covenants, confidential information, fiduciary duties, equity and incentive arrangements, and team moves. These disputes frequently run in parallel with unfair prejudice petitions, directors’ duties claims or civil fraud proceedings, and Callum is well placed to manage the interaction between the Employment Tribunal and the Business and Property Courts.

  He has also appeared unled in the Court of Appeal in employment matters, including a disability discrimination (reasonable adjustments) appeal and an interim relief appeal in a protected disclosure claim, and advises on employment status and the rights of self-employed contractors.

  Recent work

  • Re Wotter Group Ltd; Johnson v Wotter Group Ltd & Anor (CR-2026-003354). Acting for the company and its Chief Executive in a multi-million pound unfair prejudice petition arising from a founder’s summary dismissal and the operation of “bad leaver” and compulsory conversion provisions, alongside parallel Employment Tribunal proceedings. 
  • PE management incentive plan – worldwide covenants and equity forfeiture. Advised a departing senior executive and their incoming employer on the enforceability of group-wide restraints, the standard of scrutiny applicable to covenants in investment agreements, and retrospective reclassification and clawback provisions. 
  • Trade mark and restrictive covenant dispute – founder v multi-billion pound leisure group. Sole counsel for a prominent entrepreneur on the enforceability of covenants given on a stock market flotation several decades ago. 
  • Recruitment company v former CEO. Claim for breach of fiduciary and statutory duties involving the diversion of business opportunities and confidential information and the incorporation of a competing company while in office; judgment on liability secured and quantum phase ongoing. 
  • Regulated care provider – senior employees’ diversion of business. Multi-party claim in unlawful means conspiracy, dishonest assistance and breach of fiduciary duty concerning the fiduciary obligations of senior employees, alongside concurrent Employment Tribunal proceedings. 
  • Court of Appeal – disability discrimination and reasonable adjustments (unled). Advising on and drafting the skeleton argument for an appeal to the Court of Appeal in a disability discrimination claim, the central issue being whether the employer failed to make reasonable adjustments.
  • Court of Appeal – interim relief in a protected disclosure claim (unled). Advising on and drafting the skeleton argument for an appeal against the refusal of interim relief following a protected disclosure claim, challenging errors of law and procedural irregularities in the decisions below.
  • Employment status and sham self-employment. Advised a company on whether subcontractors could accrue employment rights where the arrangements might be characterised as sham self-employment; drafted a defence to claims of discrimination and breach of employment rights turning on employment status; and represented an employer in a dispute over the employment rights of self-employed contractors involving discrimination issues.
• Costs & Litigation Funding

  Costs & Litigation Funding

  Callum has an unusually deep costs and funding practice for a barrister of his seniority, born of his insolvency and fraud work. He regularly acts in security for costs applications, non-party costs applications under section 51 of the Senior Courts Act 1981 against the “real party” behind asset-less litigants, and wasted costs applications, and has a particular interest in the costs consequences of litigation funding arrangements, legal expenses insurance and the extended fixed recoverable costs regime.

  He is also instructed directly by litigation funders and law firms on the funding side: advising on assigned office-holder claims, on trusts over the proceeds of funded claims and damages-based agreements, and on the recovery of advance payments under bespoke funding and marketing arrangements.

  Security for costs, non-party and wasted costs

  • Security for costs of £75,000 – relief from forfeiture claim. Obtained security for costs of £75,000 plus costs for commercial landlords, successfully arguing that a claimant’s reliance on undisclosed legal expenses insurance was no answer where the policy terms had never been produced. 
  • Anil Khera v Top Devs LLC & Others (BR-2025-000085). Secured indemnity costs on the set-aside of statutory demands exceeding US$1 million and a non-party costs order under section 51 against the foreign corporate respondents’ controller as the “real party” to the litigation. 
  • Non-party and wasted costs against an insolvency practitioner (ICC List, unled). Pursuing non-party and wasted costs applications against an insolvency practitioner alleged to be the “real party” behind multi-million pound administration proceedings, involving disputed WhatsApp evidence, digital forensics and cross-examination at a costs hearing. 
  • Indemnity costs on dismissal of strike-out application – Emiran and Associates Ltd v HCP (Franchise) Ltd (CL-2024-000497). Acting unled for the franchisor in a c.£4.7 million Commercial Court franchise dispute, resisted the claimants’ application to strike out the defence, which was dismissed with indemnity costs, and obtained permission to serve a re-pleaded Amended Defence, engaging relief from sanctions and the amendment jurisdiction.
  • Indemnity costs on dismissal of interim injunction – Re Wotter Group Ltd. Petitioner’s application for urgent interim injunctive relief dismissed with indemnity costs. 
  • Security for costs against an impecunious claimant company (County Court at Central London, 2024). Obtained full security for costs with costs against an impecunious claimant company, applying CPR r.25.13(2)(c) to demonstrate that snapshot bank statements did not establish an ability to meet an adverse costs order and persuading the court to evaluate the net rather than gross asset position despite limited financial disclosure.
  • International statutory demands – non-party costs against controlling mind. Secured a section 51 non-party costs order against the controlling individual behind Canadian corporate creditors whose six-figure statutory demands were set aside. 
  • Indemnity costs – Hunt v Gokhool & Cole (PT-2025-000058). Obtained indemnity costs reflecting the egregious conduct of defendants who had registered sham charges against the deceased’s property.

  Litigation funding

  • Litigation funder’s trust and asset recovery claim against administrators (2026, unled). Instructed by an overseas litigation-funding SPV to recover its interest in the proceeds of funded consumer claims following the funded law firm’s administration, turning on whether a settlement agreement declared a trust over the firm’s rights under its damages-based agreements. 
  • Assigned office-holder claims – SBEE Act 2015. Advising a litigation funder on the scope of a deed assigning “misfeasance” claims arising from the liquidation of a leisure operator.
  • Funder and law firm – failed claims marketing campaign. Acting for an SRA-regulated litigation funder and law firm on the recovery of advance payments under a bespoke reconciliation mechanism, including set-off, VAT on an unwound supply and the propriety of insolvency process for a disputed debt.
  • Funding strategy in shareholder litigation. Advises petitioners in seven-figure unfair prejudice proceedings on litigation funding and pre-action strategy. 
• International Arbitration & Cross-Border Disputes

  International Arbitration & Cross-Border Disputes

  Callum acts in international arbitration under LCIA and LMAA Terms and in market arbitration, and in court proceedings with a cross-border dimension, including jurisdiction and service challenges, anti-suit relief, the enforcement of foreign judgments at common law and the recognition of foreign insolvency and corporate structures. He has drafted proceedings for the Royal Court of Jersey and has acted in disputes involving Gibraltar, BVI, Dutch, Nigerian, Malaysian, South Korean, Canadian and US entities, and in claims concerning assets in Scotland and the Mediterranean.

  Enforcement of foreign judgments, jurisdiction and anti-suit relief

  • Yayasan Khazanah v Randhawa (KB-2025-BRS-000086). Acting as sole counsel for a Malaysian scholarship foundation in a six-figure High Court claim to enforce a Malaysian judgment at common law, listed for trial in the King’s Bench Division. The case raises novel questions of private international law, including the penal law exception and a public policy defence founded on an alleged restraint of marriage and Article 12 ECHR, an area with remarkably little modern authority.
  • Jurisdictional challenge to Delaware AAA arbitration clause (2026, pre-action, led by Philip Roberts KC of One Essex Court). Advised on and drafted correspondence establishing the primacy of an English-law exclusive jurisdiction clause (extending to “non-contractual disputes or claims” in the Fiona Trust sense) over a competing AAA arbitration clause seated in Delaware contained in a US technology platform provider’s standard terms. The analysis addressed the temporal and specificity primacy of a bilaterally-negotiated NDA over a standard-form click-wrap, the confinement of the arbitration clause by its own terms to disputes about “these Terms”, the express preservation of injunctive jurisdiction in the arbitration clause itself, and the anti-suit jurisdiction of the English court in support of an English-law contract. 
  • Multi-defendant investment fraud claim – US$800,000 (Commercial Court). US$800,000 investment fraud claim involving New York governing law, joinder of a New York counterparty under the necessary or proper party gateway and cross-border asset tracing. 
  • Tan & Anor v Lawrence (BL-2024-001821, led by David Lewis KC). US$15 million share acquisition and US$30 million loan facilities dispute involving parties in the USA, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. 
  • Technology services and equity investment dispute – Abu Dhabi financial services group (led by David Lewis KC). Service out of the jurisdiction and the termination of a £3.25 million+ development, licensing and advanced subscription arrangement. 
  • Anil Khera v Top Devs LLC & Others (BR-2025-000085). Set-aside of US$1 million+ statutory demands with indemnity costs and a non-party costs order against the foreign, asset-less corporate respondents’ controller. 
  • Anti-suit injunction – exclusive English jurisdiction clause (unled). Advised on an anti-suit injunction to restrain foreign proceedings brought in breach of an exclusive English jurisdiction clause. 
  • South Korean distribution agreement dispute (Commercial Court, 2025). Six-figure claim against a South Korean distributor engaging the effectiveness of the jurisdiction clause under Hague Convention principles, service out on Asian corporate defendants and anti-suit considerations.
  • £7.25 million share charge over offshore company shares (2026). Perfection of security over foreign shares, cross-border service and jurisdiction, and parallel enforcement proceedings.
  • International statutory demands – Canadian entities and US property ventures. Set aside three six-figure statutory demands served by Canadian entities and obtained non-party costs against their controlling mind. 

  International arbitration

  • US$11 million+ LCIA arbitration – Nigerian commercial bank. Acting for a specialist asset recovery consultancy in an LCIA claim for unpaid commission under an exclusive debt recovery mandate, engaging English law contractual construction, liquidated damages and cross-border recovery of non-performing loans in the Nigerian oil and gas sector. 
  • Superyacht charter dispute – LMAA arbitration. Acting for an international charterer following an owner’s last-minute cancellation of a Mediterranean charter under the MYBA Charter Agreement, raising force majeure, seaworthiness and maintenance obligations with competing marine engineering expert evidence. 
  • Career-ending injury policy – London market arbitration. Seven-figure claim by a professional sportsperson against London market insurers, raising policy construction, consumer rights and late payment.
  • Luxury yacht charter – wrongful termination (LMAA, unled). Acting for the charterer in a high-value dispute involving European criminal law issues, CCTV evidence disclosure and six-figure damages. 
  • Yacht construction warranty claims – US$3 million+ (unled). Substantial counterclaim for defective luxury yacht construction involving warranty breaches, Consumer Rights Act and copyright claims and complex technical evidence. 
  • Challenge to arbitrator appointment (LMAA). Defending the validity of an arbitrator’s appointment against alleged procedural irregularities, engaging formal versus substantive compliance, waiver and estoppel. 
  • Aircraft purchase dispute – US$12 million (High Court / arbitration, unled). Representing the seller in a dispute involving escrow arrangements, breach of contract and jurisdictional issues under English law. 

  Offshore and multi-jurisdictional disputes

  • Claims against Jersey joint liquidators personally – UK waterfront development (sole counsel). Connected six-figure claims including novel claims against the joint liquidators of a Jersey company personally and their UK advisory firm, engaging the Jersey creditors’ winding up regime, officeholder personal liability, quantum meruit and governing law and jurisdiction as between the English courts and the Royal Court of Jersey.
  • Re Biwater Holdings Ltd and Biwater International Ltd (in compulsory liquidation) (unled). Acting for two Luxembourg investment funds with claims exceeding £72 million on an application to remove the joint liquidators of an international water-engineering group and for interim relief restraining a contested intellectual property sale.
  • Shareholder claim – fictitious US$275 million transaction by offshore technology company. Cross-border fraudulent misrepresentation claim with contested jurisdiction, Norwich Pharmacal relief and asset tracing. 
  • Cross-border liquidator removal – Royal Court of Jersey. Drafting an ex parte Representation under Article 175 of the Companies (Jersey) Law 1991 for the removal of joint liquidators of a Jersey holding company and directions restraining a credit bid for Scottish heritable property, spanning Jersey, Scots and English law. 
  • Multi-jurisdictional creditor claim – UK, Gibraltar, Netherlands and BVI. Group pleading for nine creditors against an international media group and its principal, with interim relief and enforcement against a high-value London property. 
  • Section 106 recovery involving a BVI company (2024). Junior counsel (led by Jonathan Titmuss) on the recovery of a c.£1.4 million affordable housing contribution through corporate structures including a BVI company, raising jurisdiction over overseas entities. 
  • International finance commission – €4,085,250 yacht financing (2024, unled). Letter before action on unpaid commission under an international financing arrangement, engaging agency principles, exclusivity provisions and effective cause. 
• Intellectual Property & Brand Disputes

  Intellectual Property & Brand Disputes

  Callum acts in trade mark and brand disputes, particularly where intellectual property intersects with insolvency, company and commercial law: the title that passes to a purchaser of branded stock on a pre-pack sale, the ownership of pre-incorporation goodwill, brands transferred at an undervalue on the eve of insolvency, and the enforceability of brand-related covenants given by founders. He appears in the Intellectual Property List and before the registry, and is comfortable with the urgent injunctive relief that brand disputes frequently require.

  Recent work

  • Big Drop Brewing Company Ltd v GBDC Ltd (IL-2026-000015, Intellectual Property List (ChD)). Acting unled for the claimant brand owner, obtaining urgent interim injunctive relief at a without notice hearing before Edwin Johnson J restraining the sale of trade marked stock acquired through a pre-pack administration, and subsequently securing the continuation of that relief to trial at a contested return date. The case raised commercially significant questions at the intersection of intellectual property and insolvency law, including exhaustion of rights under section 12 of the Trade Marks Act 1994, the extent of the title capable of being transferred by administrators on a pre-pack sale, and the proper approach to full and frank disclosure on without notice applications. 
  • Re Biwater Holdings Ltd and Biwater International Ltd (in compulsory liquidation) (unled). Interim relief to restrain the completion of a contested sale of an international water-engineering group’s intellectual property by its joint liquidators, for creditors with claims exceeding £72 million. 
  • Founder v multi-billion pound leisure group – trade mark and restrictive covenant dispute. Sole counsel for a prominent entrepreneur in a substantial trade mark and restrictive covenant dispute with the private equity backed leisure group that continues to trade under the brand he founded. The matter spans High Court proceedings, registry oppositions and the negotiation of a global coexistence and settlement agreement, and engages the enforceability of covenants given on a stock market flotation several decades ago.
  • Brand sold for £200 – TUV, s.423 and trade mark infringement. Acting for joint liquidators in seven-figure asset-stripping claims combining transaction at undervalue, section 423 and trade mark infringement, centring on a brand allegedly sold to a connected company for £200 having been professionally valued within goodwill at £135,000. 
  • Guebli v Gray (CR-2026-001266, ICC (ChD)). Defending a £1.2 million unfair prejudice petition raising the ownership of pre-incorporation brand goodwill and intellectual property, an alleged partnership at will, undue influence and the section 996 valuation discretion. 
  • Yacht construction warranty claims – copyright infringement (international arbitration). Counterclaim exceeding US$3 million for defective luxury yacht construction including copyright infringement issues alongside warranty and Consumer Rights Act claims. 
  • Technology services and equity investment dispute (led by David Lewis KC). Intellectual property in software deliverables under a terminated Development and Licensing Agreement within a £3.25 million+ dispute with an Abu Dhabi financial services group. 
• Insurance

  Insurance

  Callum’s insurance work arises from his commercial, sports, construction and insolvency practice. He acts for insureds in coverage disputes, including in market arbitration, and advises office-holders and developers on the preservation and pursuit of insurance recoveries, including professional indemnity cover in run-off, structural warranty schemes and subrogated claims. He also deals with the litigation consequences of insurance, such as legal expenses insurance in security for costs applications.

  Recent work

  • Career-ending injury policy – seven-figure claim (London market arbitration). Acting for a professional sportsperson in a seven figure claim under a career-ending injury policy against London market insurers, raising issues of policy construction, consumer rights and late payment, and proceeding by way of market arbitration. 
  • Structural defects warranty claims exceeding £1.5 million (2025). Detailed advice on a multi-property construction dispute involving warranty claims and potential subrogated recovery under interlocking arrangements between developers, contractors and insurers: temporal limits on liability under specialist warranty schemes, subrogation where the contractor has been dissolved, the effect of settlement agreements on subsequent insurance recovery, arbitration provisions and technical causation for alleged structural defects.
  • Professional indemnity cover in run-off – administrators of groundworks contractor. Advising joint administrators on the preservation of layered professional indemnity cover in run-off to protect realisations exceeding £3 million and the distribution fund. 
  • Legal expenses insurance and security for costs – £75,000. Obtained security for costs of £75,000 plus costs for commercial landlords, successfully arguing that a claimant’s reliance on undisclosed legal expenses insurance was no answer where the policy terms had never been produced. 
  • London art gallery v national self-storage group – fire destroying artworks worth over £2.7 million. Sole counsel in a high six-figure TCC-bound claim raising negligence, fire safety regulation, UCTA 1977 and group company liability. 
• Professional Liability & Regulatory

  Professional Liability & Regulatory

  Callum acts for and against professionals in negligence claims and defends regulated professionals in disciplinary proceedings. His professional liability work draws on his construction background (quantity surveyors), his commercial and financial services practice (professionals engaged in lending schemes, litigation funders and law firms) and his fraud practice (allegations of dishonesty).

  Recent work

  • Professional defending c.£1 million investor claim – FSMA ss.26 and 27. Acting for a professional defending a claim approaching £1 million brought by two high net worth investors, arising out of an unsecured short-term lending scheme said to have been operated through the firm by which that professional was engaged. The case raises the scope of a professional’s actual and ostensible authority, a firm’s vicarious liability for conduct said to fall outside the ordinary course of its business, concurrent claims in debt and breach of trust, and the reach of sections 26 and 27 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. 
  • Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal – allegations of dishonesty. Acts for regulated professionals facing allegations of dishonesty before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, including on the application of the test in Ivey v Genting Casinos where medical evidence is relied upon, and advises on the strategic choice between contested proceedings and agreed outcomes and its bearing on any future application for restoration.
  • Defence of specialist quantity surveyor – Central London developments (2024). Instructed to defend a specialist construction quantity surveyor in a substantial professional negligence claim relating to two high-value commercial development projects in Central London; drafted the Letter of Response under the Professional Negligence Pre-Action Protocol, following which a favourable settlement was negotiated. 
  • Non-party and wasted costs against an insolvency practitioner (ICC List, unled). Pursuing non-party and wasted costs applications against an insolvency practitioner alleged to be the “real party” behind multi-million pound administration proceedings, involving disputed WhatsApp evidence, digital forensics and cross-examination at a costs hearing.
  • Litigation funder and law firm – failed claims marketing campaign. Acting for an SRA-regulated litigation funder and law firm on the recovery of advance payments under a bespoke contractual reconciliation mechanism. 
• Private Client, Trusts & Estates

  Private Client, Trusts & Estates

  Callum’s trusts and estates work spans commercial and family contexts, and typically arises where a trust, estate or family arrangement collides with a company, an insolvency or a fraud: trustee-directors dealing with company funds, bankrupt trustees, personal representatives asserting rights over property, the succession to a company on the intestate death of its owner, and the beneficial ownership of funds in an administration. He is comfortable with the equitable remedies these disputes require, including the trustee’s account, constructive trusts and tracing.

  Recent work

  • Re Orex Consultancy Ltd (in administration) [2025] EWHC 2830 (Ch). Acting unled for a director and creditor respondent in the trust and tracing phase of multi-party Chancery Division proceedings over the beneficial ownership of c.£5.7 million of administration realisations, following the alleged misappropriation of over £25 million from pension schemes.
  • Levinson v Cross [2025] EWHC 3148 (Ch). Successfully represented the respondent leaseholder before Richard Smith J in urgent injunction proceedings raising the novel question of whether personal representatives possess a common law right to enter private property to search for a deceased’s remains; injunction refused on the balance of convenience, clean hands doctrine held to preclude equitable relief, costs awarded to the respondent. 
  • Hunt v Gokhool & Cole (PT-2025-000058, ChD, 2025). Acting unled for the claimant executor, secured judgment and indemnity costs removing sham charges registered against the deceased’s property by a defendant convicted of fraud in her dealings with the deceased. 
  • Trustee-directors’ self-dealing – breach of trust and account. Instructed for the claimant in a commercial trust and fiduciary duty dispute concerning the diversion of company funds by trustee-directors through a purported directors’ loan agreement, advancing claims in breach of trust, breach of fiduciary duty, constructive trust and unjust enrichment, and seeking a full trustee account and the setting aside of the impugned instrument. 
  • One-third beneficial shareholding in property investment company. Acting for the claimant beneficiary where the trustee directors drew six-figure interest-free loans from the company without consent, combining self-dealing and breach of trust, the construction of interlocking settlement, guarantee and dissolution instruments, waiver and release defences and claims to a trustee’s account and contractual indemnities. 
  • Section 298 removal application – joint trustees in bankruptcy (High Court). Defending joint trustees in bankruptcy against a removal application raising office-holder independence, the standing of a bankrupt with no prospect of a surplus, and the use of material subject to Family Court confidentiality.
  • Removal of bankrupt trustee – family trust (High Court). Appeared in a removal application concerning the bankrupt trustee of a family trust holding substantial six-figure proceeds, applying Letterstedt v Broers, section 41 of the Trustee Act 1925 and the Re Tempest guidelines. 
  • Emergency corporate succession – intestate death of sole director and shareholder. Urgent advice on the appointment of a director following the intestate death of a company’s sole shareholder and director, distinguishing a “transmittee” from a “personal representative” under bespoke articles and avoiding a section 125 Companies Act 2006 application.
• Defamation & Media

  Defamation & Media

  Callum has advised on defamation claims, including jurisdiction and the assessment of defamatory meaning at common law, and has a background in media and sports law (Best Mark in Media Law and JCP Sports Law Award, Swansea University). His sports and media work now also includes acting for a prominent entrepreneur in a brand dispute, a professional sportsperson’s career-ending injury claim, a motorsport contract dispute and a group of creditors of an international media group. [Team: retain as a short tag only, or fold into Commercial Dispute Resolution.]

  Recent work

  • Defamation – jurisdiction and meaning. Assisted on defamation matters focusing on jurisdiction and the assessment of the meaning of words and their defamatory nature at common law.
  • Privacy order – confidential mediation communications. Secured a privacy order protecting confidential mediation and without prejudice communications in high-profile professional services litigation involving substantial sums and sensitive commercial arrangements. 
  • Multi-party creditor claim against international media group. Acts for nine creditors in a substantial claim against an international media group and its principal involving deceit, breach of contract, guarantee and share-based remuneration disputes across UK, Gibraltar, Netherlands and BVI entities.
  • Television co-production financing dispute (Circuit Commercial Court, 2026, unled). US$470,000+ claim for a US production company arising from the funding of a ten-part television series pre-sold to a major broadcaster.