Nicola Timmins

Practices in the commercial chancery field, focusing on commercial litigation, banking, oil and gas/natural resources, company and insolvency. 

Nicola specialises in commercial chancery and commercial litigation. Many of her cases involve working as part of a large team in complex high-value litigation, particularly in matters concerning elaborate financial products or natural resources. Nicola also has a busy commercial, insolvency, company and trust dispute practice of her own. In addition to regularly appearing in the High Court in London, Nicola is regularly instructed in disputes in offshore jurisdictions, with recent significant experience in the BVI, the Cayman Islands, and Bermuda.

Nicola is particularly appreciated by clients for her high degree of numerical, economic and scientific literacy and consequently is often deployed to work closely with expert witnesses to assist with turning highly technical reports into easy to understand reports suitable for trial. Her prior experience as a litigation solicitor also places her in the unique position of fully appreciating the pressures on those instructing her, which makes her an excellent team player and a “go to” barrister for her professional clients.

Major cases include:

RZB v RBS (misrepresentation in relation to a loan to Enron); Raiffeisen Zentralbank Osterreich AG v JP Morgan (breach of contract of a tri-partite repo agreement following the collapse of Lehman Brothers); McGraw-Hill International (UK) Limited v Deutsche Apotheker und ArzteBank and RBS and Portigon AG v RBS (misrepresentation in relation to the rating of CPDO notes by S&P and Moody’s); Desmond & Ors v Credit Suisse International & GLG Partners LP (misselling of complex derivative products); Excalibur Ventures LLC v Gulf Keystone Petroleum Limited (right to oil concessions in Iraqi Kurdistan); Tullow Uganda Limited v Heritage Oil & Gas Limited and Heritage Oil plc (tax liability for oil transaction); series of four connected arbitrations arising out of breach of a loan agreement for development of a copper mine. MF Global UK Limited v MF Global UK Services Limited (attributing liability between group companies for the deficit in a pension scheme arising upon insolvency); In the matter of Laep Investments Ltd (winding up proceedings in Bermuda); In the matter of George’s Bay Limited (provisional liquidation in Bermuda); St Johns Trust Company (PVT) Limited v Medlands (PTC) Limited (Bermuda trust dispute).

Harrogate Grammar School; Emmanuel College, Cambridge (BA 2002; LLM 2003; MA, 2005).