Daniel Lightman KC

Recent Cases

• Docklock Ltd v Christo & Co Ltd [2024] EWCA Civ 45: represented the successful appellant in the Court of Appeal, which held that the rule in Clayton’s Case (the first in, first out rule) operates in the case of a running account between a property management company and its client. Accordingly, payments out of the account were automatically appropriated to sums standing to the credit of the account at the time and were not available to set off against other sums received in a later period. Neither a subsequent Family Division order nor a related settlement agreement between the companies should be construed so as retrospectively to undo that prior appropriation. Please click here to read the judgment of the Court of Appeal, and here for ‘The rule in Clayton’s Case: its application in non-banking relationships’, an article by Daniel in Butterworths Journal of International Banking & Financial Law which considers this judgment.
• In re BHS Group Ltd (in liquidation) [2025] Bus LR 1639; [2024] 1 BCLC 71: represented Mr Chandler, one of the former directors of the BHS group of companies, in proceedings brought by the liquidators for alleged breach of duty and wrongful trading. In an important judgment ([2024] 1 BCLC 71) allowing Mr Chandler’s appeal against the decision of Deputy ICC Judge Schaffer (Re BHS Group Ltd [2022] 2 BCLC 145; [2022] BCC 457), Edwin Johnson J reaffirmed that causation and quantum are essential elements of a cause of action under section 214 of the Insolvency Act 1986, as they are for breach of duty claims under section 212, and that it is essential for liquidators to plead these elements. Further, given the scale of the claims and complexity of the BHS litigation, Edwin Johnson J held, it is not acceptable for a case on the date of knowledge for the purposes of a claim under section 214 to be left “at large” on the pleadings. A specific date or dates must be identified – and it is “essential that the relevant pleading identifies what the case is on causation and quantum for each of the alternative dates relied upon as the Knowledge Date”. Please click here to read the judgment of Edwin Johnson J in In re BHS Group Ltd (in liquidation) [2024] 1 BCLC 71 and here for Daniel’s article in the New Law Journal considering this judgment.  Edwin Johnson J’s judgment ordering the liquidators to pay Mr Chandler’s costs, to be subject to an immediate detailed assessment as well as an interim payment of 60%, is reported at [2023] Costs LR 69.  After a six-week trial Leech J handed down a judgment ([2025] Bus LR 1639) which, running to 533 pages and 1,160 paragraphs, is reported to be one of the longest in Chancery Division history, in which he dismissed five of the six wrongful trading claims, four of the six misfeasant trading claims and all except two of the nine misfeasance claims against Mr Chandler; the claims against him were subsequently settled.  Please click here to read the judgment of Leech J.
• Kulkarni v Gwent Holdings Limited & St Joseph’s Independent Hospital Limited [2022] EWHC 1368 (Ch): representing Gwent Holdings Limited, successfully opposed an application for summary judgment made by Dr Rohit Kulkarni, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon who is a minority shareholder in the company which owns St Joseph’s Hospital in Newport, Gwent. The Court refused either to order the rectification of the company’s register of members under section 125 of the Companies Act 2006 with retrospective effect or to grant relief entitling Dr Kulkarni to acquire Gwent’s shares compulsorily, noting that “the issue of remediability is unlikely to be suitable for determination in most cases on a summary basis because, as in this case, the court does not have all the evidence it needs to make a determination about the proper construction of the contract and whether on the specific facts the breach was remediable”. Subsequently successfully opposed the grant of permission to appeal before Mrs Justice Joanna Smith DBE: [2023] EWHC 1286 (Ch).  Please click here to read the judgment of Deputy Master Marsh and here to read the judgment of Joanna Smith J.
• Taylor Goodchild Ltd v Taylor [2022] 2 BCLC 27; [2022] BCC 1155: represented the appellant in its successful appeal against the striking out of its claim for damages for breach of fiduciary duty against a former shareholder and director who had also been the respondent to a section 994 petition. The Court of Appeal considered, for the first time, how the guidelines laid down in Aldi Stores Ltd v WSP Group plc [2008] 1 WLR 748 (which require a party which intends to bring an additional claim in subsequent proceedings against the same defendant to draw that fact to the attention of the court in the first set of proceedings) should be applied in the context of unfair prejudice petitions. In allowing a law firm’s appeal against the decision of Snowden J to strike out as an abuse of process claims it brought against its former director and 50% shareholder who had been found in an earlier unfair prejudice petition to have acted in breach of fiduciary duty, the Court of Appeal queried whether the decision in Aldi had in mind “the rather special position relating to section 994 petitions”. Please click here to view the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
• King v Stiefel [2022] 1 All ER (Comm) 990; The Times, June 4, 2021: represented a firm of solicitors and four of its lawyers, five of ten defendants to a £58 million claim in unlawful means conspiracy brought in the Commercial Court by the claimants to previous (discontinued) litigation against the same defendants, their solicitors and QC. Successfully applied to strike out the claim – a rare example of a court striking out a fraud claim. Cockerill J addressed a number of significant legal and procedural issues, including whether the CPR require a defendant to file a defence before applying for summary judgment (she found they don’t), the purposes and requirements of a pleading (in particular when pleading fraud), that abuse of process can arise where the relevant issue could have been raised during a costs assessment in relation to previous proceedings and that (save in relation to actions for negligence) an advocate’s immunity from suit has not been abolished. Please click here to view the judgment of Cockerill J. Subsequently, Jacobs J ([2023] PNLR 18; [2023] Costs LR 559) considered the requirements for a wasted costs application to pass the “stage 1” test under CPR PD 46, para.5.7(a).
• Rawlinson & Hunter Trustees SA v ITG Ltd [2015] EWHC 1664 (Ch); [2015] EWHC 1924 (Ch): represented the defendants, the former trustees of a Tchenguiz family trust, in their successful opposition before Morgan J on the grounds of abuse of process to an application to reintroduce by way of re-amendment of the Particulars of Claim the same claims which the defendants had successfully contended could not properly be served out of the jurisdiction. Please click here to view the judgment of Morgan J.
• Munday v Hilburn [2015] BPIR 684: represented the appellants in their successful appeal against the striking out of their fraud claim as an abuse of process, the lower court having struck out their claim on the basis that when the claim was issued the cause of action was vested not in Mr Munday but in his trustee in bankruptcy. In allowing their appeal, Nugee J held that an abuse of process requires not merely that the claimant ought to have known that he did not have a cause of action but actual knowledge of a lack of title to sue. Please click here to view the judgment of Nugee J.
• Solland International Ltd v Clifford Harris & Co: decisions of Master Bowles ([2015] EWHC 2018 (Ch)) and (on appeal) Arnold J ([2015] EWHC 3295 (Ch)): the issue arose as to whether a professional negligence claim should be struck out as an abuse of process. Please click here to view the judgment of Arnold J.
• HRH Prince Abdulaziz Bin Mishal Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud v Apex Global Management Ltd [2015] 2 All ER 206, [2015] 1 All ER (Comm) 1183, [2014] 1 WLR 4495, The Times, December 8, 2014: represented the respondents in the Supreme Court (and before that the High Court and the Court of Appeal) successfully opposing an appeal by a Saudi Arabian Prince against the dismissal by the Court of Appeal ([2014] EWCA Civ 1106) of his appeals against an unless order and the entry of judgment against him for US$ 7.7m. The Supreme Court stated that the standard form of disclosure by a party requires personal signing by that party. Please click here to view the judgment of the Supreme Court, and here for ‘Why Procedure Matters’, an article by Daniel Lightman and Thomas Elias in the New Law Journal considering its judgment.
• Mahdavi v Sterling Avram and Healys LLP: represent the claimant, the victim of a fraudulent phantom sale of a property, in claims against both the purported vendor’s and the purchaser’s solicitors for breach of duty in failing to prevent a fraudulent transfer of a substantial sum, transferred by one solicitors’ firm to another for the purpose of the purchase of a property but which were misappropriated by being paid out to third parties by a fraudster working as a consultant at the purported purchaser’s law firm. Norris J ([2014] EWHC 4103 (Ch)) directed that the purported vendor’s solicitors pay over to the claimant sums recovered through the banking system.
• Sukhoruchkin v van Bekestein [2014] EWCA Civ 399 (Court of Appeal) and [2013] EWHC 1993 (Ch) (Morgan J): the High Court and Court of Appeal considered whether a worldwide freezing injunction should be set aside because the claim might be barred by reason of the no reflective loss principle. Please click here to view the judgment of Morgan J and here to view the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
• Apex Global Management Ltd v Fi Call Ltd [2014] BCC 286: before Vos J, successfully opposed an application by two Saudi Arabian Princes to set aside the grant of permission to serve them out of the jurisdiction. Please click here to view the judgment of Vos J, here for ‘The flexible friend’, an article by Daniel Lightman in the New Law Journal considering this judgment, and here for ‘Unfair prejudice petitions: long-range missiles for minority shareholders’, an article he wrote for JIBF.
• Re Fi Call Ltd [2013] 1 WLR 2993, [2013] EMLR 29: successfully opposed in the Court of Appeal an appeal by two Saudi Arabian Princes against whom allegations of serious misconduct had been made against the dismissal of their application for an order that interlocutory hearings should be heard in private to protect their reputations.  Please click here to view the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
• Petrodel Resources v Prest [2013] 2 AC 415, [2013] 3 WLR 1, [2013] 4 All ER 673, [2014] 1 BCLC 30, [2013] BCC 571, [2013] 2 FLR 732, [2013] 3 FCR 210, [2013] WTLR 1249, [2013] Fam Law 953, The Times, June 24, 2013: represented Mrs Prest, the successful appellant, in a landmark Supreme Court decision on the circumstances in which the court can pierce the corporate veil to make orders requiring the transfer to a former wife of assets and property held by offshore companies connected to the husband. Please click here to view the judgment of the Supreme Court, here for ‘Lessons from Prest’, an article about this judgment by Daniel Lightman and Emma Hargreaves in the New Law Journal, and here for ‘Petrodel Resources Ltd v Prest: where are we now?’, an article they wrote for Trusts & Trustees.
• Serious Organised Crime Agency v Perry [2013] 1 AC 182, [2012] 3 WLR 379, [2012] 4 All ER 795, [2012] 5  Costs LO668, [2013] 1 Cr App R 6, The Times, August 17, 2012 (Supreme Court); [2011] 1 WLR 2817, [2011] 4 All ER 470, [2011] CP Rep 36, [2011] 3 Costs LO 292, [2011] Lloyd’s Rep FC 387, The Times, June 10, 2011 (Court of Appeal); [2010] 1 WLR 2761, [2011] 1 Costs LR 22, The Times, July 22, 2010 (Mitting J): represented Mr Perry in his successful appeal to the Supreme Court, which decided that there was no jurisdiction to make a civil recovery order or a property freezing order under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 in respect of property located outside the jurisdiction. Please click here to view the judgment of the Supreme Court, and here for ‘A drafting enigma’, an article Daniel Lightman wrote about that judgment in the New Law Journal.
• Serious Organised Crime Agency v Perry [2013] 1 AC 182, [2012] 3 WLR 379, [2012] 4 All ER 795, [2012] 5 Costs LO 668, [2013] 1 Cr App R 6, The Times, August 17, 2012 (Supreme Court); [2011] 1 WLR 542, [2010] CP Rep 43, [2010] Lloyd’s Rep FC 606, The Times, October 13, 2010 (Court of Appeal); [2010] 1 WLR 910 (Foskett J): represented Mr Perry in his successful appeal to the Supreme Court, which decided that there was no jurisdiction under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 for SOCA to give information notices to persons outside the jurisdiction.  Please click here to view the judgment of the Supreme Court.
• Solland Projects LLP v Nautiloides Comercio International E Servicos Sociedade Unipessoal LDA [2012] EWHC 1957 (TCC): represented the claimant in successfully opposing before Coulson J the defendant’s application to strike out a claim for damages in a dispute concerning a management contract. Please click here to view the judgment of Coulson J.
• Ovlas Trading SA v Strand (London) Ltd [2008] EWHC 3236 (Ch): represented the claimants before Sir Donald Rattee in their successful opposition to an application for security for costs made by the defendants to a fraud claim. Please click here to view the judgment of Sir Donald Rattee.
• Havai v Solland [2008] EWHC 2514 (Ch): whether an order for the provision of security for costs should be varied to enable security to be provided by way of a charge over real property. Please click here to view the judgment of Martin Mann QC.
• BBC v Sugar [2008] 1 WLR 2289: Acting pro bona, represented the appellants in the first Court of Appeal decision interpreting the requirements of a decision notice by the Information Commissioner under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Please click here to view the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
• Expandable Ltd v Rubin [2008] 1 WLR 1099, [2008] CP Rep 22, [2008] BPIR 314, [2008] NPC 16, The Times, March 10, 2008: first Court of Appeal decision considering the extent of a party’s right under CPR rule 31.14 to disclosure of documents mentioned in another party’s witness statement. The first-instance decision of Patten J is reported at [2009] BCC 443. Please click here to view the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
• Fraser v Oystertec plc [2006] 1 BCLC 491, [2005] BPIR 381: represented the claimants in their successful application that an interim third party debt order be made final notwithstanding the existence of competing creditors. Please click here to view the judgment of Terence Mowschenson QC.
• Tritton Development Fund Ltd v Fortis Bank (Cayman) Ltd and others [2006] CILR 268: decision of Cayman Chief Justice Smellie in which he adopted as a matter of Cayman law the doctrine of the application by analogy of statutory limitation periods to claims in equity. Please click here to view the judgment of Smellie CJ.
• Barrett v Universal-Island Records Ltd [2006] EMLR 21: represented Island Records and members of the Marley family in their successful defence at trial before Lewison J of claim brought by former members of The Wailers alleged to have been in partnership with Bob Marley; an earlier decision of Laddie J on abuse of process was reported in The Times, 24 April 2003. Please click here to view the judgment of Lewison J.
• Oystertec v Davidson [2005] BPIR 401: represented the claimant in a case where David Richards J considered the appropriate penalty to be imposed on the defendant for failing to comply with the asset disclosure requirements of a freezing order. Please click here to view the judgment of David Richards J.
• Uzor v Chinye [2004] EWHC 827 (Ch): represented the defendant, who, after setting aside an ex parte worldwide freezing order, recovered damages under the cross-undertaking in damages. Please click here to view the judgment of David Donaldson QC.
• Eid v Al-Kazemi [2004] EWCA Civ 1811: represented the applicant before Neuberger LJ in a rare successful application under CPR rule 52.9 to set aside the grant of permission to appeal. Please click here to view the judgment of Neuberger LJ.
• Al-Fayed v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis [2004] 148 SJLB 1405: represented Mohammed Al-Fayed in an appeal to the Court of Appeal concerning his claim for damages for false imprisonment. Please click here to view the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
• Mamidoil-Jetoil Greek Petroleum Co SA v Okta Crude Oil Refinery AD [2003] 2 All ER (Comm) 640, [2003] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 635 (Court of Appeal: judgment of Longmore LJ); [2003] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 645, The Times, 19 June 2003, The Independent, 13 June 2003 (Court of Appeal: judgment of Clarke LJ); [2003] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 42, [2003] Lloyd’s Rep 1, [2003] 2 Costs LR 175, The Times, 27 December 2002 (all Aikens J); [2001] 2 All ER (Comm) 193, [2001] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 76 (Court of Appeal); [2001] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 591 and [2000] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 554 (both Thomas J): represented the defendants in 5 years of litigation concerning a contract to provide oil to the only oil refinery in Macedonia. Please click here to view the second of the three judgments of the Court of Appeal in this case and here for ‘Strict Guidelines’, an article Daniel wrote for Solicitors’ Journal about this judgment.
• Verjee v CIBC Bank and Trust Co (Channel Islands) Ltd [2001] Lloyd’s Law Rep (Banking) 279, [2001] BPIR 1149: represented the creditor in his successful opposition to an application to set aside a statutory demand. In his judgment Hart J considered the scope of the duty owed by a bank to consult its customer before honouring a fraudulently presented cheque. Please click here to view the judgment of Hart J.
• Peskin v Anderson [2001] 1 BCLC 372, [2001] BCC 875 (Court of Appeal); [2000] 2 BCLC 1, [2000] BCC 110 (Neuberger J): represented the claimants (former full members of the RAC) in their claim against the committee of the RAC. The landmark judgment of the Court of Appeal considered the circumstances in which directors owe fiduciary duties directly to shareholders. Please click here to view the judgment of Neuberger J and here to view the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
• Re Israel-British Bank Ltd (In Liquidation) [2001] CP Rep 91: Sir Andrew Morritt V-C considered whether English proceedings should be stayed or dismissed on the basis of forum non conveniens in the light of proceedings commenced in Israel.
• The University of Nottingham v Dr Simon Fishel [2001] RPC 22, The Times, 31 March 2000, [2000] IRLR 471, [2000] ICR 1462, [2000] ELR 385, [2000] EdCR 505: represented the defendant in his successful defence of claims for breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty brought against him by the university by which he had been employed as a lecturer. Elias J’s important judgment considered the circumstances in which an employee owes fiduciary duties to his employer and the ambit of any such duties. Please click here to view the judgment of Elias J.
• Mealey Horgan plc v Timothy Horgan, The Times, 6 July 1999: an early post-CPR decision concerning the use of sanctions under the CPR for breaches of court orders. Please click here to view the judgment of Buckley J.