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Andrew Spink QC

Practice summary

Andrew has 25 years' experience as an advocate in the civil courts and various tribunals and in the provision of technical and strategic legal advice to clients involved in complex civil litigation, whether as individuals, partnerships, companies, pension scheme trustees, employers and members, Government departments, or participants in multiparty group actions.



Variously described by solicitors or opponents interviewed by the legal directories in the 8 years since he took silk as "highly valued", "seriously good", and "reliable, commercial and pragmatic", Andrew specialises principally in commercial, financial services, pensions and professional negligence dispute resolution, whether it be proposed or established litigation in the civil courts or cases for mediation or other forms of ADR, or regulatory cases in front of the Determinations Panel of the Pensions Regulator and the Upper Tribunal, a new and fast-developing pensions jurisdiction where Andrew has been involved in three of the most significant recent cases.

In the field of pensions he also provides advice to corporate and trustee clients in transactional and other non-litigious situations.



Andrew has extensive experience of group litigation and accepts public access work.

Internationally, he is a registered advocate at the Dubai International Financial Centre.



He sits on the Executive Committee of COMBAR and chairs the COMBAR North American Committee.

Examples of recent Commercial work include a series of hard-fought actions against DEFRA in which Andrew acted for companies involved in the clean-up works following the 2000 and 2001 outbreaks in the UK of Swine Fever and Foot and Mouth. These raised a large number of complex issues in the areas of contractual and statutory interpretation, corporate insolvency and assignment of causes of action. There were two trips to the Court of Appeal, in both of which Andrew's client was successful, most recently in relation to the recoverability of interest under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 and the Supreme Court Act 1981.

During 2010 and 2011, Andrew has also been involved in three related commercial and insolvency matters in the Chancery Division arising out of disputes between companies over alleged breaches of warranty in a share purchase agreement, breaches of fiduciary duty and trust by company directors and preferential payments.

In addition, he is acting during 2011 in a claim against a major UK insurer for failure to provide indemnity under an employer’s and public liability policy against legal costs incurred by corporate and individual insureds in fighting a health and safety prosecution and appealing the ensuring conviction.

Examples of Andrew's recent Financial Services work includes advising in relation to the group action brought by several hundred investors against Equitable Life involving allegations of mis-selling of with-profit pension annuities, advising in relation to a proposed claim arising out of advice given by an IFA to a high-earning senior academic member of a fully funded final salary pension scheme to leave the pension scheme and invest the transfer value in a SIPP, and advising and drafting statements of case in relation to allegations of negligence, breach of contract and statutory duty made against the financial services/wealth management departments of a number of banks by a group of investors whose assets were invested on their behalf by or on the advice of those banks in a collapsed Enhanced Variable Rate Fund marketed as an alternative to a cash deposit account.

In addition, he has recently advised in another significant individual IFA claim arising out of loan-backed purchases by sophisticated investors of portfolios of traded endowment policies.

In the field of Pensions, Andrew has been listed as a "Leading Silk" in both the two main legal directories ever since his appointment as a QC. In March 2009 he appeared in the Court of Appeal on behalf of the Respondent members in the leading equalization case concerning the Foster Wheeler Pension Plan, and he has two important pending Court of Appeal matters in 2011 in the form of the appeals in the massive Pilots National Pension Fund litigation (one of the The Lawyer’s Top 10 Cases of 2010) and in the claim brought by Stena Line Ltd against P&O Ferries Ltd in relation to the funding of the deficit in the Merchant Navy Ratings Pension Fund.

He has had a busy year dealing with applications by the Pensions Regulator to exercise its financial support direction (“FSD”) jurisdiction extra-territorially. He started 2010 giving expert evidence on UK pensions legal issues to the Court in Ontario in proceedings arising there out of the Regulator’s attempt to obtain a FSD against members of the Nortel Group of companies. He then represented Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc (the US-based holding company for the Lehman Brothers Group) as well as three other non-UK “target” companies from the Group in front of the Regulator’s Determinations Panel in September 2010; the decision to issue a FSD is under appeal through a reference to the Upper Tribunal. As of early 2011, he is acting on behalf of all six members of the worldwide Chemtura Group of companies against which the Regulator is seeking the issuing of a FSD. That matter will be heard in June 2011.

Andrew has also continued to give advice to the employers and trustees of several major schemes on the pensions implications of corporate acquisitions, restructuring and insolvency, continuing problems over equalization, and section 75 debt issues.



Andrew's Professional Negligence practice focuses primarily on litigation involving pension scheme actuaries and other advisers. In 2005 he appeared on behalf of the trustee and employers of the Credit Lyonnais Pension Scheme at the trial of their action against Watson Wyatt, he advised the trustee and employers of the Philips Pension Plan from 2006 to 2009 in its successfully settled claim against Hewitt and he is currently advising in relation to a multi-million pound claim arising out of allegedly negligent investment advice provided to a major UK pension scheme.



Andrew has been a Civil Recorder since 2005 and was appointed a Deputy High Court Judge in 2008. He was elected as a Bencher of the Middle Temple in 2010.
 

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