John Wardell QC

Practice

John has a wide ranging practice concentrating on three main areas: commercial/commercial chancery, professional negligence and travel. The width of his experience in his former chambers has given him a versatility that is unusual for a member of a chancery set and gives him an edge as an advocate.

He excels at planning the strategy of a case at an early stage and seeing that strategy through to a successful outcome whether by settlement, mediation or litigation. He is willing to give robust advice and is prepared to stand by his judgment to the conclusion of a case.

Approximately 50% of his time is devoted to commercial disputes acting for a broad spread of clients including banks, insurers, corporations, Formula 1 motor racing teams, tour operators and high net worth individuals. He is particularly interested in commercial fraud and regularly brings his forensic skills to bear in claims for civil conspiracy and in disputes relating to share purchase agreements. An increasing amount of his time is spent in both domestic and international arbitrations.

His professional negligence practice grew out of the property recession of the late 1980s. John was instructed to act for such claimants as Alliance & Leicester, UCB Bank and Arab Bank in many substantial negligent valuation claims. Since then, whilst he retains an interest in all aspects of property valuation, he has expanded the scope of his professional negligence practice to include claims for and against solicitors and accountants. He regularly defends barristers on behalf of the Bar Mutual and recently appeared (on behalf of the successful defendant) in what is believed to be the first reported professional negligence claim against an actuary (Precis (521) Limited v William M Mercer Limited).

The third limb of his practice overlaps to some extent with his commercial practice. It predominantly involves acting for tour operators in relation to commercial and health and safety issues and extends to particularly contentious claims arising out of accidents abroad.

John is regularly recommended in legal publications in all three of the above categories. In the 2005 edition of Legal 500 he is listed as a leading silk in professional negligence "John Wardell QC receives very strong recommendations" and commercial litigation, "is described as a clever cross-examiner". Chambers and Partners 2006 also lists him as a leading silk in professional negligence, "has been around the professional negligence field for a long time", chancery: commercial
" John Wardell QC is a real fighter with incisiveness and a substantial Court of Appeal caseload and commercial litigation "an advocate 'with pure intellect allied to people skills'. ' A master when it comes to strategy', he is in demand due to the fact that he is 'always ready to give a black or white answer'.

Notable Cases

Precis (521) Limited v William M Mercer Limited [2004] EWHC (actuarial negligence); Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi v Baskan Gida [2004] EWHC 945 (conspiracy; conflict of laws; articles 27 and 28 of the Judgments Regulations 2000); Wreford-Smith v Airtours [2004] EWCA Civ 453 (claim against tour operator arising out of coach crash in Turkey); Bottin International Investments v Venson [2004] EWHC (share purchase agreement; negligent/fraudulent misrepresentation); Fin Soft Holding SA v Rowil Interim Management BV & anr [2003] EWHC 1433 (share purchase dispute); Luke v Kingsley Smith & Co & ors [2003] EWHC 1559 (professional negligence); Langley v Coal Authority [2003] EWCA Civ (claim by residents of Bolsover against Coal Authority arising out of landslip in Bolsover); Gidman v Barron & Moore [2003] EWHC Civ (shareholders dispute - misappropriation of company’s assets by majority shareholders); CIBC Mellon Trust v Stolzenberg and others [2003] EWHC 13 (relief from sanctions under the Civil Procedure Rules); Jones v Sunworld [2003] EWHC 591 (claim against tour operator arising out of the death of a honeymooner); CIBC Mellon Trust v Stolzenberg and others [2002] EWCA Civ 1688 (limits of the court’s power to impose conditions which can only be complied with by a third party); Jordan v One 2 One Personal Communications [2002] EWCA Civ 644 (construction of a share purchase agreement relating to the acquisition of a mobile phone company by One2One now T-Mobile); Hamilton v Al Fayed [2002] EWCA 665 (the leading case on the exercise of the Court’s discretion to award costs against third parties); Arab Bank v John D Wood [2000] 1 WLR 857 (negligent valuation; mortgage indemnity policy).