Graeme is a solicitor advocate and commercial litigator in our Real Estate Dispute Resolution team.
Graeme is a specialist advocate with experience in all aspects of real estate dispute resolution. He appears regularly as an advocate in the High Court, County Court and Tribunals, both led and unled, having spent several years on secondment to our in-house advocacy unit. Graeme is also a member of our specialist business rating team and has acted for a number of major clients and rating agents in disputed business rates.
Graeme has particular expertise in landlord and tenant issues, contractual disputes, rent review, conditional contracts, property fraud and economic torts, landlord consents and business lease renewals.
Graeme has acted on a wide range of matters in both an advisory role and as a trial lawyer, including commercial landlord and tenant, professional negligence, land options, rent review, fraud and economic torts. His landlord and tenant experience includes advice and Court proceedings on challenging conditional break notices, tenant insolvency and winding-up petitions, rent review, construction of lease terms, conditionality, dilapidations and 1954 Act lease renewals. As well as Graeme's landlord and tenant experience, he has also acted to recover possession of commercial buildings from squatters and other trespassers.
Graeme is acting on one of the largest pieces of litigation in the UK, being a follow-on damages claim against truck manufacturers following a decision from the EC Competition Commission.
Background
Graeme joined the firm as a trainee in 2006 and was appointed as a Recorder in 2019, where he sits in the Business and Property, Civil and Crown Courts. He is also a member of the Property Litigation Association.
Experience & expertise
Selected matters
- acting for UBS in its recently concluded and entirely successful heavily contested multi-party Court claim for the recovery of lender debt from Vijay Mallya (Bankrupt) by enforcement against a fixed charge in UBS's favour held over residential property in London. The amounts recovered exceeded £23 million and included all of UBS's legal costs
- acting for a landowning estate on a disputed option agreement, involving three separate high-value expert determinations
- advising on one of the highest value rent reviews to take place in 2021 on a major new development in Central London
- acting for a private equity fund on an ICC arbitration on the fraudulent sale of a series of mines in Turkey
- acting for insurers defending a professional negligence claim against solicitors in the High Court and Court of Appeal (Bacciottini and Cook v Gotelee [2016] 4 WLR 98)
- acting on a claim for mineral rights under the Mines (Working Facilities and Support) Act 1966
- acting for a major investment bank defending a claim for specific performance of a conditional contract
- acting for an online restaurant start up in a multimillion claim for fraudulent misrepresentation against their landlord
- acting as junior counsel alongside Guy Fetherstonhaugh KC in a successful defence of a claim for damages for anticipatory breach in relation to a series of option agreements (Ridgewood Properties Group Limited and Ors v Valero Energy Limited and Pannone & Partners [2013] EWHC 98 (Ch))
- acting on a dispute for Westfield Shopping towns involving the defence of a consortium claim for a refund of service charge monies, which ultimately led to an expert determination
- acting for a number of major clients and rating agents (including the Ministry of Justice and Montagu Evans) in disputed business rate matters. In particular, Graeme has advised on challenges based on the North Somerset Council v Honda and Tallington Lakes decisions. Graeme has contributed to industry and client education on the subject of business rates, including the annual RSA business rates conference and a podcast
- acting on a multi-million pound hedge fund dispute involving conspiracy, fraud, breach of fiduciary duty and misrepresentation allegations
Services
