Bankim Thanki

Bankim Thanki KC is generally recognised as one of the pre-eminent Leading Counsel in practice at the English Commercial Bar.  He has been described as “Without a doubt one of the superstars of the UK Bar” and by The Times as “One of London’s leading commercial silks” He commenced practice in 1989 and took Silk in 2003. His practice as King’s Counsel spans a wide range of commercial litigation, arbitration, regulatory investigations and inquiries (public and private) and other high quality civil work.

He has recently appeared for PACCAR and DAF in their successful leap-frog appeal to the Supreme Court from the decision of the Divisional Court on the validity of damages-based litigation funding agreements in the Trucks follow-on damages claim (R (on the application of PACCAR Inc and others) v Competition Appeal Tribunal and others), in the Court of Appeal in Soteria Insurance v IBM [2022] EWCA Civ 440 and in the Supreme Court in Pakistan International Airline Corporation (Respondent) v Times Travel [2021] UKSC 40. He has acted for Ukraine in proceedings before the Supreme Court in the US$3 billion Eurobond claim brought on behalf of the Russian Federation in the Financial List, in which he secured a significant victories in the Supreme Court [2023] UKSC 11 and in the Court of Appeal [2019] QB 1121, and in defeating a US$6 billion claim concerning minority shareholdings in Ukraine’s largest producer of oil and associated gas in an investment treaty arbitration under the Energy Charter Treaty (Stockholm Chamber of Commerce). He successfully represented Barclays Bank in the case which saw the first judgment handed down in the Financial List in London (GSO Credit v Barclays Bank [2017] 1 All ER (Comm) 421).  He also successfully represented BP in the first case brought to trial under the Commercial Court’s Shorter Trials Scheme and he succeeded in overturning Andrews J’s controversial decision in SFO v ENRC in the Court of Appeal: [2019] 1 WLR 791.

Other notable cases in Silk have included leading successfully for GMR in its dispute with the Republic of the Maldives over the international airport at Malé, for Deloitte LLP in its successful appeal against the record fine imposed by the Financial Reporting Council over its involvement with the Phoenix Four/MG Rover, for Vincent Tchenguiz in his civil claim against the Serious Fraud Office, for the Central Bank of Trinidad & Tobago in the public inquiry into the collapse of Colonial Life Insurance, for Lloyds Bank in the OFT test case on Bank Charges, for RBS in the principal test case on the enforceability of credit card agreements, for the son of the King of Bahrain in his dispute with the late Michael Jackson, for the Bank of England in the Three Rivers litigation, for Qantas in The Deep Vein Thrombosis and Air Travel Group Litigation and for the Bar Council in R (Prudential) v HMRC.

Current or recent clients include AstraZeneca, BAE, BNP Paribas, British Airways, BT, the CAA, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, the FCA, Goldman Sachs, GlaxoSmithKline, HSBC, JP Morgan, Lloyds Banking Group, NATS, Qantas, Rolls-Royce, RBS, Teva and UBS. He regularly appears offshore and has also advised several nation states and the central banks of a number of countries including the Deutsche Bundesbank, the Bank of England, the Bank of Namibia, the Central Bank of Belize and the Central Bank of Trinidad & Tobago, as well as the World Bank. For full details see Fountain Court’s’ website.

Owen’s School, Hertfordshire; Balliol College, Oxford (1986 BA First Class Hons; 1989 MA).