Twenty Essex

Mark has a busy practice, frequently instructed, as sole counsel or as part of a team, in complex, high-value disputes in the Chancery Division, Commercial Court, and County Court. Mark has a particular interest in disputes with a company-law element, but acts in the full range of commercial Chancery work (unfair prejudice proceedings, minority shareholder actions, civil fraud claims, insolvency act claims, and property and contractual disputes). Mark is equally comfortable, and has experience, dealing with such disputes in the context of arbitral proceedings (ad-hoc or institutional).

Prior to joining Three Stone, Mark undertook his pupillage at Erskine Chambers, with a focus on company and insolvency matters. After a short stint as a judicial assistant in the Chancery Division to Marcus Smith J and Snowden and Birss LJJ, Mark joined Chambers in January 2021.

Mark also has a burgeoning interest in offshore work, having recently been instructed to work with local counsel on a number of matters before the Financial Services Division of the Grand Court (Cayman Islands).

Recent highlights of Mark’s work include:

• Acting, led by Jonathan Dawid (Brick Court) and Stephen Ryan, for the Metha family in a claim brought against them for $1 billion in respect of an alleged scheme perpetrated by them to divert the proceeds of the sale of gold bullion for their own benefit.
• Acting, led by Tony Beswetherick KC (Twenty Essex), for Firexo Group Limited in a $66m claim brought by shareholders against it arising out of the failure to pursue an IPO of its shares on NASDAQ.
• Acting, led by Tony Beswetherick KC (Twenty Essex), for the petitioners in a dispute concerning a medical technologies company in which the Respondents are alleged, inter alia, to have removed the existing board to prevent investigation into the CEO’s alleged wrongdoing.
• Acting, led by Adam Chichester-Clark, for the petitioner in a bitter dispute concerning the shares in a property development company in the context of a bitter family, in which the petitioner accuses his brother of diverting corporate opportunities away from the company for this own benefit.
• Instructed (with Rupert Coe) to assist Stephen Atherton KC (Twenty Essex) in a two-week trial before the Financial Services Division of the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands in a dispute seeking $55m in damages for a brokers unlawful sale and retention of shares (Fortunate Drift Ltd v Canterbury Securities, Ltd).
• Acting, led by Daniel Lightman KC, for the respondents to a petition in a shareholder dispute over the exclusion of a founding member of a technology start-up. Mark, led by Daniel, recently appeared on an application to strike out the permission, which raised fundamental questions about the scope of relief which can be sought on a petitioner (Re Contingent and Future Technologies [2023] EWHC 2451 (Ch)).
• Acting, led by John McDonnell KC, for Mr Haider in a claim brought by him alleging the group of companies of which he was CEO was the subject of a systematic fraud perpetrated by the use of false letters of credit. John and Mark recently obtaining permission at preliminary stage for Mr Haider to continue his claim on behalf of a UAE company, the first instance of such permission being granted (Haider v Delma Engineering Projects Co LLC [2023] BCC 600).
• Acting, led by Jonathan Turner, in an application to resist enforcement of a peremptory order of an arbitral tribunal, which raised interesting issues about confidentiality in arbitral proceedings and repudiation of the arbitration agreement (RQP v ZYX [2022] EWHC 2949 (Comm).