Paul Parker
Education
M.A. (Cantab.)
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Tel: 020 7822 2036
Email: p.parker@4newsquare.com
Email Clerk: a.dolby@4newsquare.com
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Year of Call: 1986
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Languages
Serbian and French.
Profile
“Excellent at pleadings” and “consistently well thought of,” Paul Parker is recognised as a leading recommended junior in the field of professional negligence. Legal Week has reported Paul to be “fantastic with clients and you get excellent advocacy every time”. And “great fun to work with” as well! The Legal 500 has time and again over recent years listed him amongst its highly regarded juniors and Paul has also been selected for inclusion in the Legal Business publication Legal Experts in the field of professional indemnity litigation every year since 2001.
Paul is a specialist in professional liability claims involving accountants, financial services professionals, lawyers, insurance brokers and construction professionals. He has substantial experience of appearing before disciplinary tribunals. He does a variety of general commercial and chancery commercial work, with particular emphasis on insurance law.
Paul relishes the challenge of advocacy and is known for his tenacity, working hard to attain the trial barrister’s ideal: complete mastery of a brief, control of the evidence and the ear of the court. He revels in difficult cases where there are obstinate witnesses or dogmatic experts to be cracked.
In a climate in which mediation is increasingly the dispute resolution method of choice, Paul has developed a considerable level of experience, including guiding lay and professional clients through the mediation process, drafting mediation position papers, devising negotiation strategies and handling mediation advocacy.
Paul is editor of the PNBA Professional Negligence Law Review and has edited and written chapters on solicitors, appeals and IT professionals for Jackson & Powell: Professional Liability Precedents, Sweet & Maxwell, looseleaf.
He is on the Executive Committee of PNBA, and a member of COMBAR, LCLCBA and the Chancery Bar Association. He is also chairman of governors at a school in Oxfordshire.
Paul’s languages include Serbian and French.
Chancery
Commercial Chancery
Much of Paul's work in this area overlaps with other aspects of his practice. His current and recent caseload includes:
- advising a charity on potential claims arising out of a failed land development
- acting in tax planning negligence claims brought by beneficiaries and/or executors in cases following Rind v Theodore Goddard [2008] EWHC 419 (Ch); [2008] PNLR 24, in which he had acted for the defendant solicitors
- representing insurers in a substantial action to trace money and assets lost through breach of trust and fraud
- representing the trustees of a pension fund in claims involving knowing receipt and dishonest assistance
- advising and acting in breach of warranty of authority claims where companies’ ownership is disputed
Commercial Dispute Resolution
Paul's practice involves a wide range of spheres of corporate and commercial activity, including:
Sale and Supply of Goods and Services
Current and recent cases include:
- advising in a catering supplies dispute between contractors and an education authority
- acting in connection with a defects claim relating to a consignment of reconnaissance helicopters
- representing a further education college in a large claim by an educational services provider
- advising on distribution agreements concerning the DSS estate
- advising on breaches of agreements in the gas and electricity supply industries
- acting for the suppliers of window fittings and furniture in a claim brought by a local authority concerning the refurbishment of council flats and houses
- advising on taxi franchises at a UK airport
- acting in product liability dispute concerning complex programmable industrial machinery
- acting in a fine art theft case
Confidentiality
A considerable proportion of Paul’s lawyers’ liability, disciplinary and regulatory work relates to issues concerning actual or potential conflict of interest and other aspects of confidentiality. He has been actively involved in a series of cases concerning the disclosure of solicitors’ files to lenders.
Paul successfully barred a firm of solicitors from acting in construction litigation in Re a firm of Solicitors [1999] PNLR 950 (conflicts of interest and "chinese walls").
Computer Contracts & Information Technology
Paul has acted in complex and lengthy computer software disputes tried in the London and provincial TCC. Issues have included:
- the extent to which the customer had provided an adequate specification for the provision of bespoke and modified standard software
- the customer’s competence to operate the system
- the nature and quality of training provided by the supplier
- the distinction between bugs and defects
- the applicability of the supplier’s exclusion clauses
- the quantification of the customer’s loss of profits claim
Cases include BIT Group Ltd v. Housing Units Ltd (1999) TCC unreported, and others settled on confidential terms.
Paul is the author of the chapter on IT Professionals in Jackson & Powell: Professional Liability Precedents.
Construction & Engineering
Paul’s construction practice currently focuses to the greater extent on the liability of construction professionals. This and his reported cases include:
- acting for the defendant quantity surveyors in Dhamija v. McBains Cooper [2010] EWHC 2396 (TCC), a leading case deciding that the scope of the quantity surveyor’s duty to make interim valuations does not extend to having to bring defective works to the contract administrator’s attention
- advising on potential claims against the professional team in connection with the design and construction of a vocational ballet school
- acting for the employer in a substantial claim against engineers regarding the foundation design of a major London hotel
- defending engineers in connection with the foundation and floor slab design of a warehouse complex in the North East
- Cheal v. Hale Allen (1997) 59 Con LR 156: use of expert evidence in an engineers' negligence action
- Wilson v. Le Fevre Wood & Royle [1996] PNLR 107: date of knowledge (Limitation Act 1980 s.14A) in an architects' liability action
- led by Anthony Thornton QC (now HHJ Thornton QC) in a long geotechnical engineers' negligence action in 1994
Paul also has lengthy experience of a considerable range of construction disputes, litigating and arbitrating for and against employers, contractors and sub-contractors.
Past cases include:
- involvement in actions concerning property developers such as Charles Church and Barratt Homes; past clients include Higgs & Hill/HBG Construction
- representing the design engineers in a substantial action concerning a pipeline in south Atlantic
- acting in contaminated land claims and m&e engineers’ negligence actions
- acting for the employer in an £8 million claim against an architect and the contractor concerning the refurbishment of office and residential space in central London
- defending the suppliers of window fittings and furniture in a claim brought by a local authority concerning the refurbishment of council flats and houses
- numerous claims concerning residential refurbishments, extensions and rebuilds
Disciplinary
A large amount of Paul's advisory work in this area concerns professional conduct: telling professionals, especially lawyers, what they can and cannot do in private professional practice, with a view to avoiding referrals to regulators.
But of course Paul also regularly advises in connection with conduct-related complaints, particularly to the LCS and the SRA. He has advised extensively on regulatory and disciplinary issues concerning breaches of SARs - both fraudulent (including advisory involvement in the Marrache scandal in Gibraltar) and non-fraudulent - separate business structures, introductions and referrals, publicity, and proper standards of work in private client, conveyancing and litigation matters.
He has substantial recent experience of defending in proceedings particularly before the Solicitors’ Disciplinary Tribunal and the disciplinary committees of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales.
Issues with which he is most familiar have included:
- inadequate keeping of accounts
- dishonesty in falsifying evidence
- conflict of interest and duty
- secret profits
- giving professional undertakings
- failure to keep up to date with professional guidance
- inadequate professional services
- restoration to the Roll
Paul’s recently contested cases in the SDT include
- Thakerar, 10693-2011: restoration to the Roll; absence of exceptional circumstances
- Thompson, Khan & Khan, 10438-2010: proper standard of work issues in an immigration practice
- Hardman & Sgoluppi, 10341-2009: conveyancing practice / fee sharing / referrals
- Hodgson & Hartley, 9658-2007: miners' compensation claims
- Lewis, 9708-2007: SAR issues
- Moon, 9599-2006: licensed conveyancer, s.43 order
Forthcoming hearings concern block conveyancing abroad / costs information / compliance with LCS adjudications / fee sharing / referral issues in accident claims.
Financial Services Regulation
Paul is regularly instructed in claims involving financial services consultants. He has particular experience of home income plans and similar, as well as life assurance and pensions mis-selling.
He is familiar with regulatory matters under the FSMA 2000 (and its predecessors).
Current and recent cases include:
- advising insurance intermediaries as to statutory regulation/ approval
- advising investors caught up in a viatical scheme fraud
- involvement in numerous cases relating to pensions mis-selling
- challenge to the vires of a pensions review award made by the Personal Investment Authority Ombudsman: R. v. P.I.A Ombudsman Bureau Ltd., ex parte Davies Walters & Associates Ltd. [2001] EWHC Admin 1159
- brief involvement in the Equitable Life litigation prior to its settlement
Insurance & Reinsurance
Paul regularly advises as to coverage and exclusions in policies of insurance which arise in three contexts:
- general professional indemnity work – his recent cases include issues arising out of solicitors' fraud, late notification by architects/engineers, definition of insured perils in a valuers' case, non-disclosure in an engineers' case, and making fraudulent claims in an engineers' case
- insurance brokers' negligence actions – he has a thorough familiarity with the underlying insurance obtained by the broker: recent examples of the types of insurances covered in this context are E.L. (employers’ liability), P.I. (professional indemnity), E&O (errors and omissions), D&O (directors and officers) and Business Interruption
- straight insurance claims - in particular fire and business interruption claims.
His specific recent experience of insurance coverage issues includes
- acting for brokers in Yechiel v Kerry London Ltd [2010] EWHC 215 (Comm) successfully upholding insurers’ declinature
- recently representing solicitors at indemnity conferences
- recent advisory work advising insurers and professionals in connection with
- successor practice issues
- insurable interests of ex-partners and ostensible partners
- late and non-notification issues
- exclusions relating to the nature of the business insured
- cooperation clauses
- misrepresentation and non-disclosure on renewal and during the life of the policy
- moral hazard
- fraud
- interpretation of clauses relating to critical illness cover
- fortuity
Professional Liability
Accountants, Auditors & Actuaries
Paul is regularly instructed in claims against accountants and financial services consultants, covering topics as diverse as taxation matters, enterprise zones, audit responsibilities, business and incorporation advice, and life assurance and pensions mis-selling. He has a good understanding of audit and familiarity with IFRS, ISA etc. Current and recent cases include:
- acting for claimants against auditors who failed to detect substantial defalcations by a rogue director
- advising in a claim against accountants in connection with their design and implementation of EBT and other offshore trust vehicles
- representing accountants in the defence of claim by international celebrity regarding business incorporation advice
- pre-action and non-party disclosure by accountants in
- a potential action concerning share sale and tax advice: Moresfield Ltd v. Banners & KPMG [2003] EWHC 1602 (Ch)
- high net worth ancillary relief proceedings
- advising an international charity with regard to tax advice from a leading accountancy firm
- appeal from refusal to grant pre-action disclosure in a potential action concerning overseas business acquisition, due diligence and advice: Medisys plc v. Arthur Andersen [2002] Lloyd’s Rep PN 323
- acting in claim against accountants for negligent corporate re-organisation and tax planning advice
- substantial auditors' liability claim arising out of credit note fraud perpetuated on client company (principal issues: standard of care relating to audit planning and risk assessment; performance of audit)
- representing a leading accountancy firm in defence of a £60 million-plus claim by a FTSE 100 company with regard to tax planning
- acting for accountants in an action concerning the administration of members’ and proprietary clubs.
Construction Professionals
Cases include
- acting for the defendant quantity surveyors in Dhamija v. McBains Cooper [2010] EWHC 2396 (TCC), a leading case deciding that the scope of the quantity surveyor’s duty to make interim valuations does not extend to having to bring defective works to the contract administrator’s attention
- advising in connection with potential claims against the professional team in connection with the design and construction of a vocational ballet school
- acting for the employer in substantial claim against engineers regarding the foundation design of major London hotel
- defending engineers in connection with the foundation and floor slab design of warehouse complex in the North East
- Cheal v. Hale Allen (1997) 59 Con LR 156: use of expert evidence in an engineers' negligence action
- Wilson v. Le Fevre Wood & Royle [1996] PNLR 107: date of knowledge (Limitation Act 1980 s.14A) in an architects' liability action
- led by Anthony Thornton QC (now HHJ Thornton QC) in a long geotechnical engineers' negligence action in 1994
Financial Services Professionals
Paul is regularly instructed in claims involving financial services consultants. He has particular experience of home income plans and similar, as well as life assurance and pensions mis-selling. He is familiar with regulatory matters under the FSMA 2000 (and its predecessors). Current and recent cases include:
- advising insurance intermediaries as to statutory regulation/approval
- advising investors caught up in a viatical scheme fraud
- involvement in cases relating to pensions mis-selling
- challenge to the vires of a pensions review award made by the Personal Investment Authority Ombudsman: R. v. P.I.A Ombudsman Bureau Ltd., ex parte Davies Walters & Associates Ltd. [2001] EWHC Admin 1159
- brief involvement in the Equitable Life litigation prior to its settlement.
Insurance Brokers & Agents
Paul acted for the brokers in Yechiel v Kerry London Ltd [2010] EWHC 215 (Comm) successfully establishing on the evidence and in cross-examination that the insured had failed to give notice to the brokers of certain requirements as to cover.
Paul has also been involved in substantial cases concerning:
- business interruption insurance, including issues of underinsurance and average
- cover notes and interim insurances in a Lloyds context
and his recent advisory work has focused particularly on the scope of the broker’s duty to advise and to elicit material information at inception and upon renewals.
Lawyers
Paul has an extensive lawyers' liability practice including claims relating to commercial disputes, finance and investments, property transactions, and lost and mishandled litigation cases arising out of a wide range of original disputes including landlord and tenant, commercial, planning, contentious chancery, corporate and personal insolvency, matrimonial and childcare, and personal injury. He has considerable expertise in wasted costs applications.
His reported cases include:
- acting for solicitors successfully defending an allegation that they had been instructed to renegotiate the terms of an overage clause in a contract for the purchase of a property for redevelopment: Cannon v Hart Brown [2010] EWHC 1974 (Ch)
- representing solicitors caught up in the Lexi Holdings fraud in a successful summary judgment appeal: Guy v Pannone LLP [2009] EWCA Civ 30; (2009) 7 EG 90 (CS)
- advising and appearing in a series of cases on solicitors’ undertakings in conveyancing transactions:
- Angel Solicitors v Jenkins O'Dowd & Barth [2009] EWHC 46 (Ch); [2009] 1 WLR 1220; [2009] PNLR 19
- Ross Solmon & Co v Jenkins O’Dowd & Barth (2009) ChD, untranscribed
- L. Morgan & Co v Jenkins O'Dowd & Barth [2008] EWHC 3411 (Ch)
- First Property Finance Ltd v Martin & Haigh [2006] PNLR 29
- acting for the solicitors arguing duty of care and limitation points on a summary judgment application concerned with a failed IHT avoidance scheme: Rind v. Theodore Goddard [2008] EWHC 419 (Ch); [2008] PNLR 24
- other appeals:
- Vaughan v. Emmott Harrison [2005] PNLR 8 (limitation)
- Adrian Alan Ltd v. Fuglers [2003] PNLR 14 (damages awarded where it transpired that an ex-employee had misrepresented himself as a practising solicitor)
- Biggs v. Sotnicks [2002] Lloyd's Rep PN 331 (limitation)
- Green v Hancocks [2001] Lloyd's Rep PN 212 (CA) (action for lost opportunity to make £43 million out of residential property development in the Midlands; issues relating to reliance on counsel, effect of legal advice given before more recent change in the law, and the viability of claims for misfeasance in public office)
- acting for successful bank in Alpha Credit Bank AE v. Stephenson Harwood [2002] All ER (D) 415 (lender's action against solicitors, scope of duty, contributory negligence)
- representing the successful applicant in Re a firm of solicitors [1999] PNLR 950 (TCC) (breach of confidence; Chinese walls; firm prevented from acting for party in litigation)
- successfully defending the salaried partner in Nationwide Building Society v. Lewis [1998] Ch 482 (whether salaried partners liable for the firm's breaches)
Paul has vast experience of wasted costs applications, in connection with which he has appeared (among other places) in the Family Division, the Patents Court, and Employment Tribunals. He has recently been involved in the wasted costs application against ACS:Law arising from its conduct of peer-to-peer file-sharing claims, described by the B.B.C. as a “fascinating courtroom drama”. His reported cases include Majdabadi v Trustees of London Clinic [2008] EWHC 3664 (QB), [2008] All ER (D) 18 and Marsh v Sofaer [2006] EWHC 1217 (Ch), [2006] PNLR 35.
Paul has over the years appeared in and advised in lawyers’ liability cases in every division of the High Court including
- acting for software owners in a claim against their former solicitors for the failure of substantial patent litigation
- advising a P & I club in connection with potential claims arising out of a charterparty arbitration
- representing a Cypriot charterer in dispute with English shipping firm
- defending barristers in claims arising out of insurance disputes, conflicts of laws and developing areas of medical science
- representing solicitors in claims by beneficiaries and personal representatives concerning the administration of estates
- acting for a barrister in defence of a claim alleging negligent deployment of evidence at a criminal trial
- representing solicitors alleged to have mishandled defamation proceedings
He has also been instructed to appear in Scotland as an expert witness in English barrister's negligence law.
Surveyors & Valuers
Paul's work covers a broad spectrum of residential and commercial valuation claims:
- defending a well-known international firm of chartered surveyors in claim concerning the valuation of substantial commercial property portfolio arising out of a corporate takeover
- acting in a substantial residential valuer’s negligence action tried over four weeks in the QBD
- representing a building surveyor in a substantial claim brought by a well-known firm of City solicitors regarding the design and construction of their office accommodation
- experience of claims against lenders exercising their power of sale as mortgagees in possession.