William McCormick KC > Selborne Chambers > London, England > Barrister Profile

William McCormick KC

020 7400 9603 william.mccormick@selbornechambers.co.uk

Position

Commercial work covers a broad range of which recent examples include:

Representing a number of Trustee Companies in 2020-2021 defending claims to enforce against up to £140m of their assets aid to represent the proceeds of the frauds identified in the Kazakhstan Kagazy litigation;

Representing a Seychelles company suing a Singapore-based Trust Company for procuring breach of contract relating to a major property development in London. The defendant both held 95% of the shares in the defaulting company and required its employees to serve as directors of the corporate director of the defaulting company by Company for which it provided directors;

Advising a Jersey Company on the availability of remedies as against its professional advisors in connection with losses of £150m due to systematic frauds committed against its wholly owned subsidiaries in Hong Kong and China;

Defending a Gibraltarian Financial Services Company against allegations of breach of fiduciary duty in connection with an allegedly fraudulent investment scheme in which up to £15m was obtained from investors;

Defendant a Hong Kong Company against a claim for £8m based upon an alleged guarantee given to the NHS in favour of a UK subsidiary;

Within the “SKAT” litigation, successfully defending the Gerant (CEO) of a Luxembourgish Company who was alleged to have negligently failed to identify conduct said to be part of a world-wide conspiracy that has defrauded the Danish Tax Authorities of more than £1.2bn. The claim was discontinued in the face of an application for summary judgment by the defendant;

Securing a quantum meruit for work done (without a contract) in assisting in the securing of the title sponsor (BWT) for the F1 team now known as Racing Point (which produced the well-known colouring of the team’s cars);

Advising and representing parties to disputes relating to: the ownership and conduct of companies; the enforcement of post-termination covenants, and the Commercial Agents Regulations.

Examples of recent/current defamation work include:

Representing Arron Banks in an ongoing libel claim against Carol Cadwalladr arising out of her allegations (since accepted by her not to be true) that he lied about a secret relationship with the Russian Government in relation to accepting foreign funding in breach of UK referendum law (ie the Brexit Referendum);

Defending at trial in May 2021 a claim for libel brought by TV presenter Rachel Riley against a former staffer of Jeremy Corbyn arising out of comments posted on Twitter concerning antisemitism;

Representing HNW individuals the subject of defamatory articles or programmes published or broadcast from abroad (from both within the EU and elsewhere);

Representing the owners of the nationally known “heir hunter” Anglia Research Services Limited in their successful libel claim against a competitor, for statements made in emails to sales persons;

Representing the defendant in a libel claim brought by the manufacturer of a protein powder in which a report said (inaccurately) that a dead mouse had been found which was alleged to have caused losses of c£1m.

Representing a Polish Port authority (and its president and an employee) in an action for libel and malicious prosecution brought against them in England (based on statements made in Poland and in Polish that the plant had breached local environmental laws. The case raised novel issues under the (now defunct) Recast Brussels Regulation and was appealed to the Court of Appeal: [2018] EWHC 1018 (QB) & [2019] EWCA Civ 1932;

Successfully obtained an order that UKIP was liable for the costs of three Labour MPs who sued UKIP MEP Jane Collins for libel in a speech delivered at the UKIP Conference because it had manipulated her defence of that action in the hope of political advantage in the 2015 general election: Barron v Collins & UKIP [2018] EWHC 253 (QB);

Successfully represented the claimant in a conjoined appeal heard over 3 days in which the attempt by various newspapers to strike down the recoverability of additional liabilities in publication cases failed. The Court’s judgment referred to his submissions as “spirited and impressive”. Miller v Associated Newspapers Ltd [2017] UKSC 33

Career

Called 1985; QC 2010.

Memberships

Chancery Bar Association; CommBar; PNLA

Education

St Patrick’s High School, Downpatrick; University College Cardiff.