Mishcon de Reya LLP

Senior Partner: Kevin Gold

Managing Partners: James Libson

Number of Partners:228

Number of Lawyers: 670

UK Offices: London, Cambridge & Oxford

International Offices: Singapore & Hong Kong

CONTACTS:

Employment: Daniel Naftalin

Dispute Resolution: Hugo Plowman

Mishcon Private: Nick Davis

Corporate: Kevin McCarthy

Real Estate: Stephen Hughes

Innovation: Jeremy Hertzog

ABOUT THE MISHCON DE REYA GROUP:

The Mishcon de Reya Group is an independent international professional service business with law at its heart, employing over 1450 people with close to 670 lawyers. It includes the law firm Mishcon de Reya LLP and a collection of leading consultancy businesses that complement the firm's legal services.

Mishcon de Reya LLP is based in London, Oxford, Cambridge, Singapore and Hong Kong (through its association with Karas So LLP). The firm services an international community of clients and provides advice in situations where the constraints of geography often do not apply. Its work is cross-border, multi-jurisdictional and complex, spanning six core practice areas: Corporate; Dispute Resolution; Employment; Innovation; Private; and Real Estate.

The Mishcon de Reya Group includes consultancy businesses MDR Brand Management, MDR Cyber, MDR Discover, MDR Mayfair (in London, Singapore and Dubai), MDR One and MDRx as well as the Mishcon Academy, its in-house place of learning and platform for thought leadership.

In 2021, the Group launched MDR Solutions I, a litigation finance venture in partnership with Harbour, one of the world's largest dedicated litigation and arbitration funders. Earlier this year, the Group announced its first strategic acquisition in the alternative legal services market, flexible legal resourcing business Flex Legal. It also acquired a majority stake in Somos, a global group actions management business.

AREAS OF WORK:

Employment:

• Acting for Canaccord Genuity Limited on a £4 million claims brought by a former employee. Our Employment team successfully struck out claims in respect of bonus and the outstanding retention award claim in the High Court.
• Our team successfully obtained one of the highest whistleblowing awards ever made by the Employment Tribunal (in excess of £1.6 million), acting for Vladislav Zabelin in his whistleblowing claim against SPI UK Limited and the majority shareholder of the SPI Group.
• Acting for organisations of all sizes, from entrepreneurs to global brands such as Nissan, Expedia, Kering Group (Alexander McQueen and Gucci), advising them on the full spectrum of employment law from day today HR advisory to Employment Tribunal litigation. We also act for business founders, CEOs and Board Directors on market sensitive appointments and exits, and high-profile litigation involving newsworthy team move disputes and successful applications for injunctive relief in the High Court.

Dispute Resolution:

• Acting for the Government of Nigeria in challenging a substantial arbitral award won by a British Virgin Islands company arising from a failed gas deal, on the basis that the underlying contract and the award itself were procured through fraud and corruption.
• Acting for AssetCo plc in its claim against is former auditors Grant Thornton UK LLP for the negligent conduct of AssetCo's audits in 2009 and 2010. The decision is a leading judgement in auditor's negligence cases where an auditor has failed to detect that a company is being run fraudulently by management.
• Acting for Telefonica in relation to proceedings brought by Phones 4 U Limited (in administration) alleging conspiracy between EE, Vodafone, Telefonica and their parent companies (at the relevant time).

Mishcon Private:

• Advised Gina Miller in two of the most high-profile judicial reviews in recent times, the first in 2016 in relation to parliamentary approval for the triggering of Article 50 (Miller 1) and the second in 2019 in relation to the legality of the Prime Minister’s prorogation of Parliament (Miller 2). The cases are widely considered to be two of the leading constitutional law cases of the past 150 years.
• Advised a Kuwaiti businesswoman and a member of a wealthy Middle Eastern family in relation to a complex divorce, financial remedy and Children Act proceedings. The fundamental dispute was regarding the inherited nature of our clients’ wealth and her assets primarily held in the Middle East and offshore.

Corporate:

• Mishcon de Reya advises Charlie Mullins on the sale of Pimlico Plumbers to Neighborly Inc.
• Acting for Victory Park Capital on an investment into Razor Group
• Advising Brookfield on its acquisition of seven UK retail parks from Hammerson plc.
• Advising Fusion Students on its circa £315m sale of their 'Kinetic Portfolio', comprising four Purpose-Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) assets.

Real Estate Department:

• Advised Brookfield on its £714 million acquisition of science and technology property investment business Arlington. The acquisition from TPG Real Estate Partners involved all 36 Arlington sites, most within the ‘Golden Triangle’ of Oxford, Cambridge and London. The firm also advised Brookfield on its acquisition and simultaneous financing of £330 million worth of UK retail park assets from Hammerson plc.
• Acted on Fusion Student's £1.5 billion joint venture with US investor Cain International, advising on real estate, corporate, tax, planning and IP aspects. The JV will purchase and forward fund a portfolio of circa 7,500-10,000 beds over the next five years with Fusion acting as developer on most of the schemes.
• Advising Berkeley Homes on major developments at Royal Arsenal Riverside and Kidbrooke Village in south-east London, both part of its ambitious programme to create 10,000 new homes across the capital.

Innovation:

• Acting for Sky on trade mark protection and enforcement matters, including a wide-ranging dispute with an IT cloud-company trading in the UK and Europe under the name SkyKick.
• Providing international gambling regulatory advice to DraftKings Inc in relation to its merger (US$3.3bn combined market cap) with SBTech (Global) Limited and Diamond Eagle Acquisition Crop.
• Advising Microsoft in relation to its claim against various manufacturers of lithium batteries in the UK High Court for breach of EU and various domestic competition laws.

FURTHER CONTACTS:

Acquisition Finance: Raji Bartlett

Africa: Saul Sender

Art & Cultural Property: Karen Sanig and Amanda Gray

Asia: Gary Miller

Betting & Gaming: Nick Nocton

Charities, Not For Profit & Philanthropy: Chris Willis Pickup

Commercial Contracts: Lewis Cohen

Commercial Litigation: Richard Leedham

Competition: Sarah Houghton

Construction: Simon Hunter

Contentious Regulatory & Enforcement: Adam Epstein

Real Estate Investment: John Skoulding

Corporate Lending: Sarah Spurling

Corporate Tax: John Skoulding

Cyber: Joe Hancock

Data Theft: Robert Wynn Jones

Real Estate Development: Nick Minkoff

Director & Shareholder Disputes: Victoria Pigott

Education – Robert Lewis

Employment – Daniel Naftalin

Employment Tax, Remuneration & Incentives: Stephen Diosi

Entrepreneurs: Chris Keen

Families in Business: Susan Breen

Family: Kate Clark

Fashion & Retail: Sally Britton

Finance & Banking Disputes: Derval Walsh

Flotations & Corporate Finance: Ross Bryson

Fraud: Hugo Plowman

Funds & Financial Services: Charlotte Wilson

Immigration: Steven Bostock

India: Kamal Rahman

Information Technology: Adam Rose

Insolvency & Recoveries: Danny Davis

Insurance Litigation: Sonia Campbell

Intellectual Property: Jeremy Hertzog

International Arbitration: Louis Flannery KC

International Franchising & Brand Extension: Lewis Cohen

Israel: James Libson

Latin America: Adam Rose

Litigation: Hugo Plowman

LLPs & Partnerships: Nick Davis

Mediation: Rowena Herdman-Smith

Mergers & Acquisitions: Charlie Fletcher

Planning & Environment: Anita Rivera

Private Equity: Nadim Meer

Private Commercial Litigation: Janet Tobin

Professional Negligence: Richard Gerstein

Property Litigation: Daniel Levy

Public Advocacy: James Libson

Real Estate Finance: Nick Strutt

Real Estate Investment: Stephen Hughes

Real Estate Taxation: Jonathan Legg

Recruitment Services: Nick Davis

Regulatory & Compliance: Adam Epstein

Reputation Protection: Emma Woollcott

Residential Property: James Liffen

Shareholder Activism: Saul Sender

Sports: Simon Leaf

Supervising Solicitors: Hugo Plowman

Tax & Wealth Planning: Charlie Sosna

Trade Marks: Sally Britton

Trusts & Succession Disputes: Mark Keenan

White Collar Crime & Investigations: Johanna Walsh

Wills: Charlie Sosna