Benn Richards

About

Benn is a Partner in the Restructuring & Insolvency team specialising in contentious insolvency. He works closely with insolvency practitioners, creditors, lenders, corporate entities, directors and other stakeholders.

Benn is a solicitor-advocate (all higher courts, civil and criminal) in both England and Wales, and is admitted to practice as a solicitor-advocate in the Eastern Caribbean Circuit.

He has significant experience acting on complex contentious matters, including acting on unlawful tax avoidance schemes, breach of duty claims against directors, cross-border insolvency issues, and acting on complex bankruptcy issues.

Experience

• Advising the founder, shareholder and significant creditor in disputed cross border restructuring of an AI company, with debts of US $600m, which gave rise to multiple applications and contested proceedings in the Supreme Court of Bermuda.
• Advising the Swiss liquidators of Swissair in various cross border applications: Schweizerische Luftverkehr-Aktiengesellschaft [2009] All ER (D) 153 (Aug).
• Acting for Cayman liquidators to a Hedge Fund, which was a feeder fund to a well-known New York based “Ponzi scheme” on various cross border application and UK proceedings against a major clearing bank.
• Acting for the petitioning creditor in a complex bearer share dispute concern property in the Czech Republic (which included appointing provisional liquidators) – GBI Investments Limited ([2010] All ER (D) 171 (Jun)).
• Acting for stakeholders on a disputed Restructuring Plan.
• Acting for a significant creditor group on one of the UK’s largest every bankruptcies.

Credentials

• Admitted as a solicitor: England & Wales (2003)
• Admitted as a solicitor-advocate: All higher courts, civil and criminal (2005)
• Admitted to practice as a solicitor-advocate: Eastern Caribbean Circuit (2006)