James Ayliffe QC

Practice Overview

James Ayliffe QC specialises in complex, high value financial and business cases.

He has acknowledged legal expertise across a wide range of fields including banking, financial services, company, insolvency, trusts, professional negligence and real property.

His legal expertise is complemented by practical familiarity with financial and business structures and by sound judgment. 

He offers a creative approach to problems, using lateral thinking and other tools to think "outside of the box".  In this respect, the breadth of his expertise and experience can be invaluable as principles applicable in one field may trigger solutions to problems in others.

Recognising that hard work is almost always vital to a successful outcome, he never stints in his efforts on behalf of clients.  Determination, persistence and dynamism are core to his approach.

These qualities have enabled him to build an impressive practice.  He is as comfortable addressing a narrow point of law in one field as dealing with multiple issues of law and fact stretching across several fields.  What most distinguishes his practice is the need for mental agility in dealing with difficult, and sometimes seemingly intractable, issues.

In recent years he has become increasingly involved in "fund" work - i.e. dealing with disputes and issues arising where assets are held for others under "pooling" arrangements of one sort or another, including trusts, hedge funds, private equity funds, securitisation structures, pension funds, with profits funds and closed and open-ended corporate vehicles. 

Much of his work has international or cross-border elements - recent cases have involved jurisdictions as diverse as the Channel Islands, Isle of Man, Gibraltar, Cayman, BVI, Cyprus, New York, South Africa and Ukraine.

Professional Reputation

James is currently recommended in Chambers & Partners and/or The Legal 500 directories for:

• Banking
• Chancery commercial
• Commercial dispute resolution
• Financial services
• Professional negligence
• Real estate litigation

The directories currently describe him as (among other things) "fantastic", "dynamic", "level-headed and focused", "easy to deal with", "always on top of his cases", and with "a splendid understated style". 

Plaudits from earlier directories include "held in high regard", "widely respected", "meriting the most notable compliments", "a team player", "very clever", "intellectually tough", "will stand up to anyone", and "a star of the commercial Bar".

Qualifications

• First in Philosophy Politics & Economics. New College, Oxford
• Distinction in Diploma of Law. City University,  London

Memberships

• Chancery Bar Association
• Commercial Bar Association
• Commercial Fraud Lawyers Association
• Insolvency Lawyers Association