Arnold Ayoo

Arnold specialises in heavy commercial litigation but accepts instructions across a spread of Chambers’ practice areas. He has particular expertise in insolvency, banking and consumer finance – as well as a focus on group litigation and product liability.

Arnold’s background in high value multi-party litigation has seen him regularly appear as sole counsel in the High Court. In that capacity he has been involved in numerous recent precedent-setting decisions in his specialist areas (see Capital Funding One Limited v Esqulant [2020] EWHC 981 (QB); Wolf Rock (Cornwall) Limited v Raila Langhelle [2021] B.C.C. 67 and Points of View v Erre DB Group SA [2021] 2 WLUK 70 to name a few). He also acts in high value international arbitrations and has recently (as sole counsel) concluded a multi-million dollar ICC oil arbitration involving an African State, the State-owned oil company and its oil-exploration partners.

In 2021, Arnold is instructed (as sole counsel) on a £4m claim in the High Court concerning an intention to defraud creditors (s.423 Insolvency Act 1986) and is acting for an investment bank in a £3m Commercial Court action against a South African gold mining company, arising from a $50m brokerage contract. In 2022 he will appear for the respondent in the Supreme Court in a generationally decisive case on unjust enrichment (Barton v Gwyn Jones [2019] EWCA Civ 1999).

Indeed, he has a particular interest in cases with an international element. In 2020 he obtained a security for costs order against a China-domiciled Claimant and appeared (as sole counsel) before the QBD of the High Court in a case concerning the conversion of an Italian freezing injunction into an English remedy for the purpose of enforcement (Manetta v De Filippo [2020] EWHC 3460 (QB)).

BA Law (Jurisprudence), University of Oxford, Christ Church

BPTC, BPP (Very Competent)