Ms Lisa Linklater KC > Exchange Chambers > Leeds, England > Barrister Profile

Ms Lisa Linklater KC

0113 203 1970 linklaterkc@exchangechambers.co.uk View profile

Work Department

Commercial; Chancery; Insolvency

Position

Lisa Linklater K.C. is acclaimed by clients, instructing solicitors and the legal directories for her advocacy at trial, on appeal, in applications and Alternative Dispute Resolution, as well as her technical and strategic excellence, service quality and client care in the following practice areas, in which she has specialised for over 25 years:

• Shareholder disputes (unfair prejudice petitions, just and equitable winding up petitions, derivative claims and breaches of and exits under shareholder agreements);
• Partnership and LLP disputes;
• Joint venture disputes;
• Claims against directors;
• Corporate and personal insolvency and restructuring (administrations, liquidations, CVAs, the new moratorium and restructuring plans):
  • Claims against directors and accomplices (including breaches of directors’ duties, misfeasance, knowing assistance, knowing receipt, conspiracy, wrongful trading, loan accounts and unlawful dividends).
  • Technical applications within corporate insolvency involving novel points of law under the Insolvency Act 1986, cross-border issues or wider legal issues such as property.
  • Issues relating to fixed and floating charges, including priority of charge holders and creditors.
  • Office holder claims under the Insolvency Act 1986 (transactions at an undervalue, transactions defrauding creditors, preferences, wrongful and fraudulent trading).
  • Asset recovery (e.g. trusts, real property, tracing and retention of title).
  • Contested administration applications and winding up petitions.
  • Challenges to CVAs.
• Contractual claims of all types (particularly share and business sale agreements and shareholder agreements), including the arbitration of such disputes or their resolution by expert determination;
• Law of Property Act receiverships;
• Mortgages, debentures and other forms of security; and
• Proprietary estoppel.
• Claims in restitution.

Lisa is recommended as a leading silk in Chancery, commercial dispute resolution and insolvency and restructuring by Chambers UK Bar 2023 and in company/insolvency by Legal 500 2023, following consistent recommendations as a leading junior in this field.  Lisa is an extremely effective trial advocate, skilled in cross-examination of both factual and expert witnesses, including forensic accountants. Lisa is valued for bringing a commercial, creative, collaborative, strategic and practical approach to advancing her clients’ objectives.

Lisa served as Junior Counsel to the Crown (Attorney General’s Regional Panel) for three consecutive terms (18 years) and was regularly instructed by the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in high-profile, complex company director disqualification applications and public interest winding up petitions, as well as by HM Revenue and Customs in precedent-setting cases and multi-million pound tax fraud cases.  She is currently instructed as lead Counsel by the Secretary of State for Business and Trade in a complex director disqualification in the retail sector.

Recent highlights of Lisa’s practice include:

Shareholder Disputes

• Successfully securing the purchase of minority shareholder’s shares by majority shareholder Respondents to unfair prejudice petition under s994 Companies Act 2006 and related claims involving niche antiques businesses in Mayfair, London and Hamburg, Germany in a dispute between two families that had lasted over ten years (2021 – 2023 in case listed for trial in HCt, BPC in 2024).
• Successfully securing purchases of the shareholdings of minority shareholders in privately owned companies following the presentation of an unfair prejudice petition under s994 Companies Act 2006 in the following situations:
  • Petitioner inherited shares from her late husband in company in the engineering sector, involving 6 companies and a lengthy factual history (2021 onwards, case settled before trial in HCt, BPC on liability in 2023).  Case involved complex legal issues as to whether there was a quasi-partnership and whether a minority shareholder discount should be applied.
  • Company in the hospitality sector in London.  The petition included allegations of potential tax evasion (2021 onwards, case settled before trial in HCt, BPC in 2023).
  • Dispute between former friends in hard-fought combined unfair prejudice and just and equitable petitions in respect of two substantial property developments in Manchester (2019 onwards, case settled in 2023).
• Acted for 3 shareholders in successful resolution of threatened unfair prejudice petition under s994 Companies Act 2006, valued by the Petitioner in excess of £6 million involving complex factual issues spanning 30 years, a discretionary trust and allegations of excessive remuneration and failure by directors to recommend dividends. Complex and valuable legal issues on whether or not a minority shareholder discount should be applied and forecasting issues on valuation of Petitioner’s shareholding in light of the Covid pandemic.  Company in the manufacturing sector. Resolved successfully at mediation before issue of proceedings (2021 – 2022).
• See further Lisa’s company CV.

Corporate and Personal Insolvency

• Re Torotrak plc (in liquidation)[2023] EWHC 115 (Ch): Successfully secured directions from the High Court for liquidators in an application involving novel issues arising from a proposed distribution in a liquidation to a significant number of members, residing around the globe (2023).
• Advising LPA receivers and lender in respect of priority between a debenture and option agreement, involving lending of £9 million (2023).
• Advising and acting as lead Counsel for the Secretary of State for Business and Trade in a director disqualification matter in the retail sector (2023).
• Cleveland Bridge UK Limited (in administration): Successfully secured directions from the High Court for joint administrators of a former global leader in the design of complex structures including the Shard on a complex application relating to the distribution of £7 million. The application involved novel issues relating to fixed and floating charges, the equitable doctrine of marshalling, substantial preferential creditor claims by HM Revenue and Customs and Saudi law (2022).
• Advising high-profile respondent to statutory demand for £11.7 million and involving complex issues on the construction of a suite of finance documentation and issues relating to the release of collateral security over property with development potential (2022).
• Securing a favourable settlement for the defendants to a £5 million misfeasance and transaction defrauding creditors claim, brought by the liquidators of an offshore partnership that had moved onshore in long-running HCt BPC proceedings (2018 – 2021).

Commercial Litigation

• Successfully securing in HCt, BPC the dismissal of an application for an interim injunction to prevent a finance house from enforcing its security in respect of a substantial property development, involving a debt of over £1 million (2023).
• Successfully securing the discontinuance of a claim in restitution against a director in respect of tax liabilities relating to an employee benefit trust, shortly before the trial of the claim (2023).
• Advising and acting for shareholders and lenders in respect of proposed interim injunction for breach of a shareholders’ agreement in dispute involving a substantial property development in the North West with an interface with a planning appeal (2023).
• Successfully deflected threatened removal as a director of a company of client who was accused of tax evasion, securing important strategic success in bitter dispute between family members of a business in the leisure sector. Lisa acted in parallel with other silks in different fields of specialism (2022).
• Acting in a factually and legally complex property dispute spanning 40 years within a family in respect of a property portfolio valued at c. £4m and alleged partnership, in which she led other Counsel (2020).

Commercial Contract Disputes

• Acting in respect of a public contract relating to substantial property development (2023).
• Acting in respect of claim for earn-out of up to £11 million under a share purchase agreement in the technology sector (2023).
• Advising in respect of the construction of contract relating to the supply of test kits for coronavirus (2022).
• Successfully acted for construction company in claim for specific performance of contract to purchase land with a contract value of £4m in a dispute that had lasted 10 years (2020 – 2021).

Commercial Fraud

• Acting in alleged claim by company administrators of £12 million for alleged knowing assistance and knowing receipt of breach of trust and alleged breaches of directors’ duties.  Lisa is collaborating with Jersey lawyers in respect of a freezing order obtained in the Royal Court of Jersey (2023).
• Successfully acted for Petitioner in unfair prejudice petition under s994 of the Companies Act 2006, involving allegations of tax evasion in respect of a company in the hospitality sector in London (2021 onwards, settled before trial listed in 2023).
• Successfully obtaining the withdrawal of an appeal against an assessment of over £1m in a complex MTIC tax fraud involving precedent legal issues and in which the fraud had taken place in Poland and Hungary (2016 – 2021)

Lisa is widely published in her fields of specialism, including in Sweet & Maxwell’s Insolvency Intelligence, R3’s Recovery and the Company Lawyer. She is a member of the editorial advisory board of the Company Lawyer. Recent seminars by Lisa include Shareholder Disputes, the Art of Share Valuation, Directors’ Duties, the New Moratorium and Restructuring Plans introduced by the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020. Lisa is also a member of the advisory board of the Centre for Business Law and Practice at the University of Leeds.

Career

Junior Counsel to the Crown (Regional Panel) (2000 – 2018)

Memberships

• Chancery Bar Association
• Northern Chancery Bar Association (Committee Member)
• R3 fellow (association of business recovery professionals) (full member)
• Insolvency Lawyers’ Association (full member)
• The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple
• North Eastern Circuit
• Northern Circuit Commercial Bar Association

Education

• MA Cantab (Law), University of Cambridge (Jesus College)
• Inns of Court School of Law, London
• The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple

Leisure

Music, golf, swimming and theatre. Lisa is fluent (conversational) in French and German.