Katherine Wakeham

Corporate Disputes

• Acting for a group of shareholders in unfair prejudice proceedings brought by a minority shareholder following his exit from the business.
• Acting for a co-founder and substantial minority shareholder in a software company in cross-border unfair prejudice claims against the directors following a sale of underlying business to a related party.
• Acted for a leading IFA aggregator in several related warranty & indemnity claims and other dispute resolution processes brought by and against the sellers of a business following a bolt-on acquisition.
• Acting for a UK property developer in a multimillion-pound dispute arising from the expulsion of a member from a limited liability partnership established to develop a £75 million UK residential development site.
• Acted in LCIA arbitration proceedings against a venture capital investor arising from a fund-raising round.
• Advising on both the buy and sell-side of numerous warranty and indemnity claims arising following corporate acquisitions, including insurance-backed warranty and indemnity claims.

Commercial Disputes

• Acting for a food products manufacturer in breach of contract and fraudulent misrepresentation claims in the Commercial Court and on appeal. Our team was shortlisted for Commercial/Corporate Litigation Team of the Year at the Legal Week Commercial Litigation and Arbitration Awards for its work on this case.
• Advising for a Middle Eastern public body on the successful, early strike out of a circa £50 million claim involving parallel proceedings in the UK and New York courts, arising out of a consulting agreement with a US-based firm.
• Acting for a sports data business in the defence of complex, multijurisdictional tort claims linked to alleged unlawful data collection activity.
• Advising an importation and distribution company in London High Court proceedings relating to repayment of finance, leading to a favourable settlement.
• Advising employers on a range of restrictive covenant breach cases arising out of employee team and individual moves, including involving misuse of confidential information.
• Acting for a number of high-net-worth individuals in a Commercial Court professional negligence dispute arising from a £30 million company sale.
• Advising a marketing agency in litigation and arbitration proceedings in connection with disputes over digital advertising space.

Contentious Financial Services and Investigations

• Assisting an FCA regulated business in dealing with over 300 claims arising out of the failure of one of its authorised representatives and the collapse of a well-known mini-bond issuer. This included designing and using innovative case management systems to cost-effectively handle the volume of cases.
• Acting as a skilled person in s.166 review under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, focusing on AML and sanctions compliance.
• Defending a business owner in High Court proceedings brought by the FCA alleging that the individual was knowingly concerned in the operation of unauthorised Collective Investment Schemes.
• Acting for a lender in claims for non-payment by the borrower under a multijurisdictional secured loan.
• Advising a provider of co-working facilities on claims exposure and the defence of mis-selling claims arising out of a series of financial promotions, and potential actions for negligent advice relating to the same events.
• Advising regulated firms on their regulatory disclosure obligations in connection with disputes.
• Working on large-scale bank investigations to review potential breaches of AML and compliance regulations. Each of the investigations was conducted in the bank’s jurisdiction, including the and included a number of banks in the Middle East, as well as banks in and Europe (including Malta) and the UK.

Other Experience

• Undertook secondments to a multinational events business, and boutique financial institution, advising on contentious, commercial and regulatory matters.