Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP

Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP

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Rebecca Andrews-Walker

Rebecca Andrews-Walker

Rebecca is a specialist insolvency partner in the commercial dispute resolution team. She is experienced in the full spectrum of personal and corporate insolvency matters, both contentious and advisory, and is one of the few lawyers to be dual-qualified as an insolvency practitioner, holding both corporate and personal Joint Insolvency Examination Board accreditations. Drawing on her rare holistic insight on insolvency matters, Rebecca frequently represents some of the firm’s most significant clients, across both its UK and international offices, on complex, high value and high-profile insolvencies. She has also advised on a number of prominent CVAs in the leisure, hospitality and retail industries, and on challenges to them on unfair prejudice and material irregularity grounds. Rebecca is a regular speaker and trainer for MBL and strongly advocates the sharing of knowledge within the industry.
Alison Appelboam-Meadows

Alison Appelboam-Meadows

Alison is a partner in the PI and clinical negligence team, which handles a range of personal injury and clinical negligence cases. She has over 30 years’ experience in the field, with particular expertise in clinical negligence cases involving obstetric negligence. She has handled many cases on behalf of children with cerebral palsy as a result of ante-/peri-/post-natal events, running the cases to trial, if necessary, to achieve the best outcome for her clients, eg Zhang v Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Massey v Tameside & Glossop Acute Services NHS Trust. She also acts on behalf of adults who have sustained brain damage as a result of meningitis or hypoxia, eg Napoli v Bromley Hospitals NHS Trust, and those who have suffered significant spinal cord injuries.
Will Axtell

Will Axtell

Will is a partner in the corporate team, specialising in M&A, fundraisings, spin-outs and other corporate law matters. He is based in the Oxford office and has particular expertise in the technology and life sciences sectors. Will has a strong track record in complex and high value transactions, often with a cross-border element. He has advised on many US-UK international transactions and has acted on some of the largest Oxford University spin-outs to date. Will is also co-head of the firm’s digital business group. His clients range from start-ups and high growth companies to larger listed companies, as well as high net worth individuals and successful entrepreneurs. Will has a Magic Circle (Clifford Chance) and blue-chip in-house (Vodafone) background.
Daniel Berry

Daniel Berry

Daniel advises on all aspects of intellectual property protection and enforcement in the UK and EU including trade marks, passing off, domain names, anti-counterfeiting, design rights, copyright, patents and confidential information. He works for clients across a variety of business sectors with particular expertise in the fashion, travel, food and drink, entertainment, agriculture, automotive and sports industries. His significant track record in all aspects of trade mark and design filing includes the prosecution and enforcement of rights before the UKIPO and EUIPO registries. He frequently advises on the registrability of brands, national and international portfolio management and the commercial exploitation of these rights. Daniel also specialises in IP litigation and has considerable experience before the English and Welsh Court and Intellectual Property Enterprise Court, as well as in UDRP proceedings before Nominet, WIPO and the Company Names Tribunal. He has a strong background in anti-counterfeiting matters, customs notices and criminal prosecutions.
Tony Burns

Tony Burns

Partner in the real estate division. Tony acts for a number of property companies, developers, and owner occupiers and deals with all aspects of commercial property work to include investment portfolio acquisitions and disposals, commercial leases, acting for both landlord and tenant, and all related documentation. He has particular experience in development work and specialises in advising on deal structures to enable acquisition, and subsequent development and disposal of sites. He is also experienced in dealing with overage agreements which are increasingly common in this market, and in other complex and unusual transactions. Work highlights include: disposal of a large industrial park in the Southampton area to ABP at a price of £89m, with the benefit of Crown leases; Acting for administrators on a lease of restaurant premises at a significant rent in the Covent Garden area, together with related development agreement, overage agreement, pre-emption agreement and other related documentation, and advising on the subsequent sale of the investment; disposal of portfolio of 18 properties to Goldman Sachs at a price of £75m; acting for the landlord in putting in place lease of power station site for Marchwood Power Station, Southampton, a £100m project, together with all related easements, leases of inlet and outlet structures and other related documentation; and acting for tenant on tidal energy lease from the Crown of part of the sea bed designed to derive energy from tidal movement after all testing and infrastructure put in place.
Mike Busby

Mike Busby

Mike heads the real estate division, with overall responsibility for its strategic direction, and is a member of the firm's strategy board. He specialises in: strategic land advice for large landowners and mid-tier residential developers, including advising on promotion agreements, options and conditional contracts; portfolio acquisitions and disposals for high net worths and family offices; retail and leisure, including advising numerous golf course owners and operators; advising on hotel sales and purchases; advising national restaurant operators and retailers on their English portfolio; advising care home developments; and high value landlord and tenant work.
Sam Davies

Sam Davies

Sam is a partner in the real estate division. He acts for a number of developers, landowners, landlords, tenants, buyers and sellers, and owner occupiers. Sam advises on all aspects of commercial property work, including acquisitions and disposals of complex development sites, dealing with options, promotion agreements and conditional contracts. He also deals with financing and refinancing of sites (acting for borrowers and lenders), buying and selling land and commercial buildings including offices, retail premises and industrial sites, and acting for landlords and tenants on all types of lease work.
Sarah Duckworth

Sarah Duckworth

Sarah is a consultant in the Guildford family law team. With a wide range of practical experience and expertise in all family matters, she has worked on cases involving significant and complex assets, business assets, trusts and pensions, pre (or post) acquired and inherited assets, as well as those with an international aspect. She is also skilled in drafting pre and post nuptial agreements, and applications for financial provision for children. Often instructed in private children matters, Sarah has advised on disputes regarding child arrangements, school choice, or risk of removal from the jurisdiction, as well as international and internal relocation cases. She is used to dealing with cases where there are allegations of abuse, coercive control, parental alienation, and narcissistic traits. Sarah is also one of only a few family lawyers accredited to advise on the division of pensions upon divorce.
Hannah Gearey

Hannah Gearey

An associate director in Penningtons Manches Cooper’s private client team in Guildford, Hannah advises UK and overseas based clients on a broad range of private client matters including the drafting of wills and tax planning, Court of Protection work, probate and trusts, and has expertise in the establishment and running of charities. She also creates personal injury trusts for vulnerable individuals and acts for the RFU Injured Players Foundation in the creation of trusts for its clients.
Veronica Gilmour

Veronica Gilmour

Partner in the family law team with a broad range of experience which includes advising on private children disputes, pensions on divorce and pre and post marital agreements. She has particular expertise in high-value, complex financial cases in both the UK and internationally. Accredited by Resolution as a specialist family lawyer, she has been at the forefront of the development of non-adversarial alternatives in family law matters for a number of years. She is a qualified collaborative lawyer with a thriving mediation practice and is a longstanding member of the Surrey Resolution Committee.
Laura Gorman

Laura Gorman

Laura is a partner in the Oxford real estate team specialising in commercial property. She advises clients across a variety of sectors including education, life sciences, property development, charities and retail. Laura has particular experience in advising both developers and landowners on residential and commercial development schemes, including site assembly, debt and forward funding and onward sales/lettings. She also acts regularly for clients in the science and technology sectors in relation to leasehold premises, particularly start-up and spin-out companies, and assists those acquiring newly built premises. Laura has significant experience acting for charitable clients on property disposals and advising on compliance with the relevant regulatory regime. She is also a charity trustee in a voluntary capacity.
Laura Hughes

Laura Hughes

Laura is a partner in the family law team in the Guildford office. She advises on all aspects of relationship breakdown including divorce, financial settlements, children matters, cohabitee separations, TOLATA litigations and pre-nuptial agreements. With a thriving practice which includes a significant amount of work from referrals, Laura provides clear and robust professional guidance in a sensitive and empathetic manner. She is skilled in helping clients during complex situations, focusing on practical solutions while ensuring the best outcome for their needs, be that solicitor-led negotiations, arbitration, court proceedings or private settlement hearings. In 2021, Laura was named Citywealth’s Silver Family Lawyer of the Year - Senior Associate.
Ruth James

Ruth James

Ruth is a partner and trained collaborative lawyer in the family law team in Oxford. She specialises in financial matters and disputes relating to arrangements for children. Acting for both married and unmarried clients, she regularly advises on cases involving international elements and complex financial arrangements. She also acts in cases where there are allegations of parental coercion or control. Ruth is also particularly skilled in acting for business owners and executives, or their spouses, and advising where there are complex issues regarding company valuations and remuneration packages.
Alison Johnson

Alison Johnson

Alison handles a wide practice covering the full spectrum of clinical negligence matters but with an emphasis on complex neurology cases, oncology, general practice, gynaecology and maternal injury, and paediatric claims. She is very focused on client care and ensuring that clients are looked after during the investigation process and then fully compensated. Alison has advised on a number of maximum severity claims recovering damages settlements of £10 million+, but she also has considerable experience of managing mid-high value claims, including fatal claims, often on a conditional fee agreement basis. Alison is an accredited solicitor with both the AvMA and Law Society specialist clinical negligence panels and receives enquiries through them. She is also a trained AvMA helpline volunteer and speaker. Alison is a mental health champion and culture and welfare partner for the personal injury and clinical negligence team and splits her time between the Basingstoke and Oxford offices.
Simon Knott

Simon Knott

Partner in the real estate team. He has considerable experience dealing with all aspects of commercial real estate including acquisitions, disposals, letting, development and funding. He has particular expertise acting for large corporate tenants with fast ‘roll out’ programmes with a focus on the retail and leisure sector including numerous convenience stores. His clients include Fitness First and White Stuff Limited. Examples of work include: acting for Fitness First for 14 years acquiring numerous gyms upon their behalf and dealing with general property matters. He dealt with the property aspects of the recent CVA and the subsequent disposal programme of the non-performing gyms. He met Fat Face when it had one shop and acted for the company until Jules and Tim’s (the founders) exit including dealing with the property aspects of that sale. Over the last five years he has been heavily involved with ground rents and his team have acquired hundreds of ground rent investments with an aggregate value in excess of £125m. He has acted for IKEA in connection with the development of the IKEA Southampton store; for a property investment fund in connection with the sale of a ground rent portfolio of 5,000 units; and for one of the big four banks in connection with the provision of acquisition finance in respect of West Tower Liverpool.
Mark Lee

Mark Lee

Mark heads the firm’s nationally recognised travel team and its insurance and reinsurance group. He is a catastrophic injuries lawyer with particular experience of cases involving severely brain injured claimants, who are involved in accidents abroad. He is very well connected in the travel insurance industry and advises insurers and policyholders regarding travel related disputes, both in a claimant and a defendant capacity. Notable case successes include Evans v R&V Allgemeine Verischerung AG, ABC v AXA France, Vann v Profeta de Sa, Julie Bygrave v Thomas Cook Tour Operations Ltd, and Susan Pimbblet v Kevin Clelland and Ethniki.
Peter Massey

Peter Massey

Peter is a partner in the construction and infrastructure team leading on housing, development, construction and operational matters. Coming from an engineering background and having worked in house at AMEC plc, Peter has extensive experience of acting for both the public and private sector and clients praise him for his practical approach. His practice covers all aspects of contentious and non-contentious construction including development, joint ventures, building and FM contracts, procurement, ICT contracts, consultants' appointments, partnering agreements, bonds, PGCs and collateral warranties. He also advises on distressed schemes, dispute resolution, tactics and adjudication. Peter has particular expertise in the accommodation sectors including residential development, student accommodation, hotels and housing schemes. He has acted for leading investors, developers, contractors and numerous housing associations. He also has significant projects experience and has acted on some of the highest profile PFI/PPP schemes and he continues to work on health, leisure, education and housing projects in the UK.
Laura McCann

Laura McCann

Laura is an associate director (FCILEx) in the housing team with over 15 years’ experience in the sector. She acts for housing providers, including housing associations and local authorities, in the sale and purchase of both outright and affordable housing, and has a strong and loyal client following. She advises clients on joint venture/mixed tenure schemes and has significant experience of advising on schemes such as Help to Buy. Furthermore, she deals with all after sales matters including re-sales, staircasing and lease extensions.
Laura Naser

Laura Naser

Laura is a partner in the family law team in Guildford. She has expertise in domestic and international family law, including financial cases and disputes concerning arrangements for children, for both married and unmarried couples. She regularly deals with a variety of cross-jurisdictional and high net worth matters, most recently in the USA, Singapore, Dubai, Australia and Europe. She is also experienced in acting for clients in emergency situations, making urgent applications to the court in cases relating to children, finances and domestic abuse.
Tim Palmer

Tim Palmer

Tim is director of best practice and a member of the firm's management board. He is also Money Laundering Reporting Officer and Compliance Officer for Finance and Administration (COFA). The best practice team combines Penningtons Manches Cooper’s risk and knowledge functions which focus on keeping the firm safe and continuing to help ‘make it better’. Between 2010 and 2022, Tim headed the firm’s private individuals division which provides high quality advice on tax, family law and succession issues as well as a broad range of other services enabling private clients to achieve their personal goals. As a partner in the clinical negligence and personal injury team, he represented claimants for more than 20 years, successfully concluding many cases through negotiated settlements and where necessary at trial. He is accredited as a mediator by the Centre For Dispute Resolution and has been on the approved solicitors lists of the Spinal Injuries Association and Headway. He has also been a member of the Law Society’s Clinical Negligence Panel, the AvMA Specialist Clinical Negligence Panel and the Legal Aid Agency’s Review Panel. In 2016 he was appointed an Honorary AvMA Panel member. Honorary AvMA Panel membership is awarded to selected former AvMA Panel members in order to recognise the longstanding and significant contribution that an individual has made in the field of clinical negligence and patient safety as well as to the work of AvMA.
Kathy Potter

Kathy Potter

Partner in the Oxford office and head of the corporate tax team. Advises on the tax position for corporate acquisitions and disposals, reorganisations and restructurings, and corporate finance. This includes advising individuals on tax efficient investments, such as EIS and SEIS, and providing tax structuring advice for a planned exit including advising on the availability of Business Asset Disposal Relief. She also advises clients on VAT and SDLT implications of property transactions, including advising on the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS). She is experienced in advising on the taxation of remuneration and termination packages including IR35 issues, employee incentives, including both approved and unapproved share schemes, and advising on the tax issues surrounding issuing shares to employees and directors.
Maria Riccio

Maria Riccio

Consultant in pensions team advising trustees, employers and intermediaries in relation to all aspects of UK pension arrangements. Having worked for many high-profile companies and schemes, she has the specialist knowledge to advise on complex legal issues, in particular relating to liability management, scheme changes, mergers, terminations and debt issues following corporate restructuring or insolvency. She has also been involved in high-profile litigation, most notably the leading equalisation case of Foster Wheeler Ltd v Hanley & Others.
Daff Richardson

Daff Richardson

  Daff co-leads the firm’s multi-disciplinary education sector group, and is a partner in the employment department.  She advises institutional, corporate and individual clients on strategic and high-value employment matters including reorganisations and restructuring. Daff also advises senior executives and employers on boardroom disputes, and executive appointments and terminations. Her employer clients include higher education institutions, household name charities, and technology sector clients. She has advised senior figures in life sciences, IT, and education.  Penningtons Manches’ education sector group advises HEIs, private colleges, independent schools and other further and higher education institutions and charities. The group provides a full service to these clients including immigration advice, advice on corporate structures, charities, employment, real estate, governance, compliance and student issues.  Daff’s personal practice includes advising individual academics and institutions on employment issues, particularly where disciplinary action is taken. She also advises institutions on student complaint matters. Her clients include a household name educational charity, several Colleges of the University of Oxford and a leading independent school.
Gillian Rivers

Gillian Rivers

Partner. Gillian advises on all areas of domestic and international family law and has an extensive international practice. Gillian is the immediate past Chair to the Family Law Committee of the International Bar Association (IBA) and has been an officer since 2007. She is also a Fellow of the International Academy of Family Lawyers (IAFL). She is on the editorial board of the College of Law. She is also a member of the LNTV Legal Expert Panel. She was a recommended member of the Citywealth Leaders’ List in 2015 and also rated as a Super Lawyer in the same year. Gillian has a bias towards the financial aspects of relationship breakdown and regularly deals with highly complex, high-net-worth financial claims. She is also very experienced in private law children disputes and financial applications by a single parent on behalf of a child. She is experienced in private law children disputes, having acted in a number of important reported cases, including Re Y (A Child) (Private Law: Interim Change of Residence) [2014] EWHC 1068 (Fam). She was also involved in the ‘Cinderella Law’ campaign, which resulted in it becoming part of Statute in the Serious Crime Act 2015. Gillian is a respected author and has written for publications such as the ‘Law Society Gazette’ and co-authored on ‘Clarke, Hall and Morrison on Children’. She is often quoted in print media and has broadcast on national radio. She is the co-chair of the IBA Human Trafficking Task Force and is coordinating training in England and Wales to all police forces and the judiciary. She is also an invited member of the Santa Marta Group which has as its aim combatting human trafficking. Gillian’s work with the IBA and Santa Marta Group is carried out on a strictly pro bono basis. She is a panel advisor to Kevin Hyland OBE, Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner. In 2016, Gillian was given Freedom of the City of London and became a Liveryman in The City of London Solicitors' Company.
Charles Seaward

Charles Seaward

Charles is a consultant in the real estate team. His areas of expertise include the acquisition and disposal of land and buildings for occupation, investment and development, by way of agreements, leases, promotion agreements and joint ventures. He acts for clients in the office, wholesale and retail sectors, landowners seeking to maximise the value of their land holdings, and property funds. He has a particular interest in the entertainment sector, advising recording studios and record and music publishing companies.
Gavin Stenton

Gavin Stenton

Gavin is a dual-qualified solicitor and chartered trade mark attorney, working between Penningtons Manches' Oxford and London offices.  He is a trade mark, designs and brand protection specialist, advising brand owners in a wide range of industry sectors including fashion, retail, sport, drinks, education, publishing, IT, biotech and professional services.  Gavin handles all aspects of trade mark and design filing, prosecution and enforcement, and is regularly involved in complex, multi-jurisdictional filing programmes and cross-border disputes. His practice incorporates all elements of trade mark and design portfolio management, advice to brand owners on the registerability and availability of their brands, and conflict resolution through opposition, cancellation and/or infringement proceedings. He also advises brand owners on the proper usage and commercial exploitation of their brands as well as on the acquisition of third party brands and related due diligence.
Linda Storey

Linda Storey

Linda heads the firm’s social housing team. She has over 20 years’ experience and specialises in advising housing providers on acquisitions, disposals, associated planning agreements, home ownership transactions (both affordable and outright sale) and lease extensions, as well as advising on Right to Buy and Right to Acquire. Linda has strong relationships with clients including the Peabody Group, L&Q, Bromford, Paragon Asra and Vivid Housing. She pioneers initiatives for clients designed to help individuals to move into affordable home ownership and increased delivery from new providers to the sector. Linda is a regular contributor to sector publications and regularly speaks at leading sector conferences.
Chris Syder

Chris Syder

Chris is a partner in the employment team in London, with more than 25 years’ experience as a UK employment law specialist. His practice covers all aspects of English employment law, ranging from HR advisory to cross border compliance, trade union and employee relations issues, collective redundancies/restructuring, restrictive covenants, and whistleblowing. Chris also advises on employment tribunal claims, handling senior level grievances/disciplinaries and Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) regulatory issues. As one of our North America group lead partners, his role includes working regularly with US and Canadian clients. A CEDR accredited mediator, Chris has a keen interest in employment and commercial mediation. From 2011 to 2017, Chris was the CBI’s governing body representative for the International Labour Organisation (ILO), a specialised agency in the United Nations. Consequently, he fully understands the ILO’s supervisory system and the challenges faced by unionised businesses, especially those that are alleged to have breached ILO freedom of association and collective bargaining conventions. He has been named in the UK Top 100 Corporate Modern Slavery Influencers’ Index, which acknowledges individuals from all business sectors who are raising awareness of modern slavery and labour exploitation. Since 2019, he has collaborated with the Association of Professional Social Compliance Auditors (APSCA) by sitting on their disciplinary panels to determine cases of breaches of APSCA’s code of professional standards. Chris was previously head of employment at a London-based international law firm.
Daniel Toop

Daniel Toop

Daniel is head of the Court of Protection team. He mainly supports those who have suffered catastrophic injuries as a result of medical negligence or personal injury and have been awarded substantial compensation to meet their future needs. With a particular interest in acquired brain injury, Daniel advises on a broad range of Court of Protection and personal injury trust issues for both professional and lay deputies and trustees. His area of specialism is working with and supporting the litigation process, both in clinical negligence and personal injury claims. This knowledge is essential in ensuring that the compensation, which can take many years to secure, is properly protected and managed, either through a personal injury trust or a deputyship.
James Went

James Went

Corporate lawyer specialising in advising life sciences and technology companies. His transactional work includes acquisitions and disposals, often with an international element; university spin-outs; venture capital funding transactions; joint ventures; corporate restructuring and re-organisations. He works with companies at all stages of their life cycle and many clients are spin-outs from the University of Oxford, Imperial College London, and other universities and technology transfer organisations, who he works with on a long-term basis.
Emma Willing

Emma Willing

Emma is a partner in the family team with over 15 years of experience. She offers a depth and breadth of expertise in all aspects of family law and has developed particular capabilities in the resolution of complex and high value financial issues on divorce, private children law matters, cohabitation disputes and the drafting of marital and cohabitation agreements. Her extensive international experience sees her draw regularly on her network of international contacts across her caseload. She works for clients from a wide range of backgrounds including entrepreneurs, family business owners, city professionals, celebrities and the independently wealthy. Emma also has extensive expertise in advising in respect to modern family building whether through surrogacy, assisted reproduction, donor conception, co-parenting and adoption (both domestic and international). She has worked on numerous complex surrogacy cases involving overseas jurisdictions and for clients with international connections. As a qualified mediator, she can also assist clients in seeking to resolve issues outside the context of court proceedings. Emma frequently contributes to the legal press and is a member of Resolution.
Gemma Woodhouse

Gemma Woodhouse

Partner specialising in employment law both contentious and non-contentious with a keen interest in all aspects of discrimination law. Since qualification, Gemma has been involved with a significant Court of Appeal decision and a number of Tribunal hearings and appeals to the Employment Appeal Tribunals. She also regularly provides corporate support in relation to  business transfers and reorganisations and day to day HR advisory support for commercial clients. Gemma has also provided guidance to clients on the implications of TUPE and the terms of commercial outsourcing arrangements. Gemma advises a number of independent schools and academies in relation to their employment law issues and was key in starting the 'Independent Schools HR Forums' operated by the firm. She presents seminars internally and externally on a broad range of employment issues and also contributes articles to both external publications and the firm’s regular employment update. She is described by clients as having “a good tactical approach to dealing with HR issues”, being “very swift with her advice” and an adviser who “ acts in the client’s best interests”.