The Company & Commercial Practice

13 KBW is an established set of chambers with considerable expertise in civil litigation. The set is, 56 strong, large enough to attract and retain high calibre practitioners, but sufficiently small to maintain personal contact with all our clients.

This group deals with those areas of law particularly relevant to contemporary business and commerce. The modern litigant will look for expertise in all types of contractual dispute coupled with a ready appreciation of the remedies available to him. Thus a dispute may involve not only substantive issues on, say, the law of the sale of goods such as the retention of title, but also sub-issues on agency and bailment, with related questions involving company law and insolvency. In other words, the modern litigator has to be practical and well informed on many fronts; this is the service we aim to provide. The best way to help busy solicitors is to provide a team of counsel with varying levels of relevant experience, which enables you to select the right person for your case and helps us to provide you with an efficient service.

Our combined expertise lies in the following fields:
Accountants' (and other) professional negligence, agency, arbitration, bailment, banking, bills of exchange, carriage of goods, Club Law, commercial fraud, Company Law, conflict of laws, consumer credit (and hire-purchase) economic torts, factoring, financial services, insurance (and re-insurance), insolvency (both corporate and personal), libel, partnership disputes, retention of title, restraint of trade, sale of goods, shareholder disputes, time-share (and holiday cases), tracing and recovery of assets.


Some of our more interesting recent cases are set out beneath

Banking, where we have been involved in several actions against clearing banks for misappropriation of funds:NatWest Bank v Jones; Doshi v NatWest Bank; Midland Bank v Ross.

Club Law: we are counsel to the Kennel Club and the National Golf Clubs Advisory Service, acting in such matters as breach of contract, disputes over rules, race relations in membership, rent reviews etc.

Commercial Fraud, where we are acting for the liquidators of the Savings and Investment Bank, the failed Manx bank; we are now involved in an action over the exercise of a share option and in another action over fraudulent misrepresentation concerning the purchase of shares in a company; we are also acting for the prosecution in the lengthy Ostrich Farming Corporation fraud case.

Contract/Commercial sale of goods, where we acted in connection with gambling debts; Ritz Casino Ltd v Khashoggi ("high roller" gaming debts and illegality); acting for a computer leasing company.

Legal and Financial Professional Negligence, covering barristers, solicitors and accountants negligence, including Connolly Martin v X [1998] Times, 17th August (professional negligence - duty of care of barrister to opposite party - scope of immunity);

Libel, where we appeared for the plaintiff in a successful libel action against a newspaper and then successfully complained to the Press Complaints Commission when the newspaper inaccurately reported the outcome of the case;

Partnership disputes, where we have advised in solicitors' and dentists' partnership disputes.


Our team comprises the following Counsel, whose detailed Curriculum Vitae can be provided:

Roger Ellis QC (1962) has over 40 years' experience of commercial litigation and arbitration, covering inter all aspects of commercial leases, franchise agreements, national and international banking and financial matters.

Robert Lamb (1973) has experience in a wide range of civil litigation and advisory work, specialising in property and chancery matters, professional negligence and business law.

Anthony Higgins (1978) has considerable expertise in all areas of contract including venture capital agreements, franchises, sale of goods, carriage and construction, as well as intellectual property and professional negligence. 

Neil Vickery (1985) has experience in a wide range of civil litigation and advisory work, with a concentration on property, and contractual & commercial disputes.

Sinclair Cramsie (1988) covers a wide range of common law areas, specialising in contractual & commercial disputes, employment law & property disputes.

Adrian Higgins (1990) has experience of contractual disputes including building work, landlord and tenant work & mortgage cases including appearances in the Court of Appeal.

Edmund Walters (1991) has experience of contractual disputes including building work, landlord and tenant work, real property matters and mortgage repossession cases.

Gabriel Buttimore (1993) has experience of civil litigation and chancery work including commercial and residential landlord and tenant, property.

John Clargo (1994) has particular expertise in landlord & tenant and other property litigation.  In 1999 he was appointed by the Attorney General to the Provincial Panel of Counsel authorised to conduct case on behalf of the Government.

Stuart Nicol (1994) has experience in a wide range of commercial law including partnership and technical contractual matters . His particular speciality is intellectual property including trade mark and design disputes as well as patents and copyright claims.   Cases include acting for "The Village People" and "Huf Haus" in copyright disputes.

Nigel Woodhouse (1997) has wide experience of general civil litiation, including landlord & tenenat, restrictive covenants, easements, boundary disputes and applications under TOLATA.

Christopher Mann (1998) Professional negligence, covering clinical, surveyors, solicitors and valuers, Real property work and chancery remedies. Building and engineering disputes, covering JCT and international contracts, delay and defects claims in the TCC, contractual construction, domestic and ICC arbitrations. Company and commercial work: insurance and re-insurance, economic torts, consumer credit and hire purchase.

Edward Bennion-Pedley (2004) has experience of a range of civil common law matters, in particular property, commercial and personal injury.

Timothy Brown (2005) undertakes a broad range of civil and regulatory work principally in areas of commercial common law, employment, environmental, local government, property and public law.

We understand the importance of the selection of the right individual, both for you and your client. We would urge you to discuss brief details of your case with our Civil clerk, Stuart Ritchie (sritchie@13kbw.co.uk).  As a team, we aim to provide excellent service to all our clients, and you can be sure that, should you instruct one of our more junior members, you will still get the benefit of the expertise of other senior members.

We take a commercial approach by combining prompt action with practical advice. We are proud of our level of service to clients, and were awared Qualitymark  for the Bar in 2008.

Our Chambers' policy is to carry out our daily business without direct or indirect discrimination on grounds of race, ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, religion or political persuasion.

THE COMPANY & COMMERCIAL TEAM

Practice Leader: Anthony Higgins 1978

Door Tenants

  • Paul W Reid 1975

Junior members deal with smaller cases and have experience in all aspects of common law, particularly covering contractual and commercial disputes.

We understand the importance of the selection of the right individual, both for you and your client. We would urge you to discuss brief details of your case with our Civil clerk, Stuart Ritchie. As a team, we aim to provide excellent service to all our clients, and you can be sure that, should you instruct one of our more junior members, you will still get the benefit of the expertise of other senior members.

We take a commercial approach by combining prompt action with practical advice. We are proud of our level of service to clients, and are now preparing for Qualitymark assessment.