• Arbitration

  During pupillage, Charles has carried out research on:

  • the use of anti-suit injunctions to prevent challenges to an arbitral award; and
  • the approach under English law to conflicting jurisdiction clauses, one in favour of the English courts and the other an arbitral tribunal.
• Aviation

  During pupillage, Charles gained experience of various contractual disputes between companies operating in the aircraft industry.

• Banking and Financial Services

  During pupillage, Charles gained experience of:

  • claims arising from spread betting contracts;
  • claims to recover sums loaned by banks to individual customers; and
  • claims against financial services providers alleging various failures relating to the provision of information regarding investment products.
• Civil Fraud, Asset Tracing & Recovery

  During pupillage, Charles gained experience of claims against financial services providers relating to the misrepresentation of information regarding investment products.

• Commercial Litigation

  During pupillage, Charles gained experience of:

  • claims for failure to deliver goods with a market value of c.US$896 million under a contract for sale;
  • claims for breach of the terms of share options agreements;
  • claims against warehousemen for failure to ensure safekeeping of goods; and
  • claims for breach of contract involving conflicting jurisdiction clauses.
• Company

  During pupillage, Charles gained experience of an appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in respect of a winding up order made in the BVI on the “just and equitable” ground (Chu v Lau [2020] UKPC 24).

  He has also experienced a range of claims brought by and against companies.

• Insolvency

  During pupillage, Charles gained experience of:

  • bankruptcy petitions; and
  • applications for administration orders.
• International & Offshore

  During pupillage, Charles gained experience of:

  • an appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council concerning the beneficial ownership of shares in a BVI company (Pleshakov v Sky Stream [2021] UKPC 15); and
  • litigation before the Bermuda Supreme Court concerning various trusts matters in the context of what is said to be the largest tax fraud in U.S. history.
• Partnership and Joint Ventures

  During pupillage, Charles gained experience of:

  • claims relating to the valuation of partnership shares; and
  • an application for pre-action disclosure in a case of an alleged partnership.
• Professional Negligence

  During pupillage, Charles gained experience of claims against financial services providers relating to the negligent provision of information regarding investment products.

• Trusts, Probate & Estates

  During pupillage, Charles gained experience of:

  • various claims for breach of trust;
  • applications to collapse trusts under the rule in Saunders v Vautier;
  • claims to rescind equitable dispositions on the basis of mistake;
  • challenges to the validity of a Will on the bases of lack of capacity, undue influence and fraudulent calumny; and
  • applications for the construction of Wills.

Other information

• Academic History
  • BA (Jurisprudence), Jesus College, Oxford (Exhibition)
  • LLM, International Commercial Law, University College London (Distinction)
  • BPTC, BPP (Holborn)
• Publications

  “Whither the ‘illusory trust’?” [2021] Law Quarterly Review, 206-212.

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