Acting fast on freezing orders, urgent applications and post-termination disputes.
How Michael can help
Michael has significant experience acting in urgent matters requiring immediate court intervention. He is regularly instructed in applications for freezing orders, specific performance, and injunctions to prevent dissipation of assets or enforce restrictive covenants. He acts for both applicants and respondents, including in multi-jurisdictional disputes where parallel proceedings or enforcement issues arise.
He is known for responding quickly under pressure and providing clear, practical advice in time-sensitive and commercially critical situations.
Typical instructions include:
- Applying for or resisting freezing injunctions in civil fraud and asset tracing cases
- Advising on interim relief following termination of commercial relationships
- Acting in applications for specific performance and prohibitory relief
- Supporting clients facing urgent enforcement risks across borders
Examples of work
- Acted and advised in a claim involving a threatened injunction in foreign courts. The dispute involved telecommunications services, and raised technical and conflict of laws issues.
- Advising in a number of potential claims on the suitability of applying for a freezing injunction on as well as on underlying merits.
- Advising on a potential quia timet injunction to restrain anticipated breaches of post-termination covenants in an employment contract.
- Advising in a number of claims on the suitability of applications for specific performance of contractual agreements.
- Advising in relation to a potential application for security under section 25.1(a) of the LCIA Arbitration Rules.
- Advising on bringing an injunction restraining the presentation of a winding-up petition.
- Advising in a potential claim for breach of a restrictive covenant over land. The covenant required that the land only be used for flats, but the defendant wanted to use it as a car park. The proposed claim involved a potential injunction, declaratory relief and restitutionary damages pursuant to the principle in Wrotham Park Estate Co. Ltd. v. Parkside Homes Ltd. [1974] 1WLR 798.
- Acting for a respondent (successfully) resisting an application to renew or extend an injunction, which had expired, against disposing or otherwise dealing with shares in a company.
- United States Securities & Exchange Commission v Manterfield [2010] 1W.L.R.172.
Acted, with David Wolfson KC, for the United States Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) in upholding on appeal the grant of a freezing injunction over assets in England without a cross-undertaking in damages. The Court of Appeal held that it was right not to require the SEC to give such an undertaking as it was a public body pursuing a law enforcement claim (previously the rule had only been extended to domestic regulatory bodies), and it was right for the judge at first instance to hold that fraudulent activity of the kind allegedly engaged in by the respondent was an international problem requiring international co-operation. The Court of Appeal also held that there was no infringement of the respondent’s rights to a fair trial under Article 6 of the ECHR. - Itsalat International Company Ltd v Allied TC Plc [2009] EWHC 1265(CH)
Acted, with Stephen Auld KC and Hannah Brown KC, for the claimant in a successful application for a freezing injunction and a subsequent claim arising from an alleged multi-million US$ international fraud, involving deceit, breach of directors fiduciary duties, conflicts of interest, misappropriation of company assets, dishonest assistance and receipt, and cross-border jurisdictional issues