Louis Doyle KC

Louis Doyle KC is a commercial silk with a particular expertise and reputation and extensive experience in insolvency and insolvency-related work, the latter commonly involving commercial claims litigated under the procedural umbrella of a formal insolvency.

Louis works on both the corporate and personal sides for office-holders, creditors (private and institutional), shareholders and other stakeholders. He has appeared in about forty reported insolvency cases and is named as a leading practitioner across insolvency/restructuring, commercial dispute resolution and chancery in both Chambers & Partners and the Legal 500, as he has been variously since 1999. According to one plaudit, “He is fantastic on his feet and has a very keen sense of how to pitch cases with judges and with opponents; he is well read, technically excellent and clients love him”.

Louis’s practice also encompasses company law, credit and security, financial litigation and interim remedies, including injunctions and summary judgment, director disqualification and public interest petition work (Attorney General panel member, 2001-2007). Alongside the litigation in which he engages, Louis’s practice also extends to non-contentious drafting and advisory work, including an increasing role in assisting and advising, either alone or as part of a team, in the planning and structuring of high-value transactions or assessing the legal risks in proposed investments, most recently a profit participation agreement for investment to be used in procuring a US$30m credit line guaranteed by the US government.

Since its first publication in 2005, Louis has co-authored what is now Doyle, Keay & Curl’s Annotated Insolvency Legislation (10^th edn, 2022, LexisNexis) (with Professor Andrew Keay and Joseph Curl KC of 9, Stone Buildings, Lincoln’s Inn where Louis is also a door-tenant). He is also a contributing editor to the leading looseleaf, Gore-Browne on Companies (LexisNexis). Over lockdown, Louis established and now edits the bi-monthly journal, Kings Insolvency. (To be added to Chambers’ free distribution database or to obtain past editions, simply email [email protected]). He has lectured widely to professional audiences on his areas of interest and has undertaken pro bono work throughout his career at the Bar.

Louis has acted for clients from a very wide range of backgrounds, sometimes in very challenging circumstances. As a leader, he encourages team involvement and role delegation. Louis’s preferred approach is an early-stage identification of a client’s aims and outcomes together with an objectively realistic evaluation of merits and risk. Louis is enthusiastic in appropriate cases about mediation and ADR, of which he has extensive experience. He is also interested in innovative case funding ideas.

Louis was born in Liverpool into a working-class family. He is married and has six children. He qualified as a solicitor in 1994 before being called to the Bar in 1996 and joining what is now Kings Chambers in 1999. For many years he served as an officer in the Army’s reserve parachute battalion. In 2017 he founded and headed up Kings Chambers Wellbeing. His interests include fitness, music, literature, The Cormac McCarthy Society and Liverpool Football Club.

Louis’s ongoing and recent work includes:

• Acting in three sets of high-value proceedings for a liquidator and a litigation funder in claims for unpaid share capital including claims under the Insolvency Act 1986 (including s.74 calls), s.33 of the Companies Act 2006, breach of fiduciary duty and breach of trust, estoppel (by share certificate and otherwise), mistake and rectification.
• Obtaining orders at very short notice the appointment of receivers under s.37 of the Senior Courts Act 1981.
• Advising Boris Becker in relation to his ongoing bankruptcy.
• Interactive Digital Systems Ltd v VST Enterprises Ltd [2021] EWHC 887 (Ch): acting on behalf of minority contingent creditor applicant, supported by “just and equitable” petitioners, on opposed administration application. Currently on appeal to the Court of Appeal.
• Advising institution on susceptibility of bank redress for financial product mis-selling to set-off (valued in eight figures).
• Acting for and advising (with Steven Flynn, Kings Chambers’ sports law team) the offshore owner of a failed Football League club. Since appearing at the first hearing before the Sporting Sanctions Appeal Tribunal on behalf of the administrators of Wrexham Football Club in 2001, Louis has acted on the administrations of fourteen Football League clubs (including Leeds United, twice).
• (Cayman Islands) Acting for the liquidators of an investment feeder-fund now in dissolution in respect of very high value claims arising out of a high-profile failed Cayman investment trust (contractual and statutory construction, partnership law, estoppel and tracing).
• Acting for two of three respondents, leading Professor Andrew McGee, on the return date of a freezing and proprietary injunction obtained by the Financial Conduct Authority alleging fraudulent promotion and marketing of lcollective investment schemes. Case settled.
• (British Virgin Islands) Advising (separately) liquidators of two heavily insolvent BVI companies on the scope of the conflict of laws principle prohibiting in a domestic state the enforcement of a revenue debt of a foreign state.
• Broomhead v National Westminster Bank plc [2021] EWHC 105 (Ch) (Chief Master Marsh): brought in as replacement for earlier trial silk leading Martin Budworth for appellant debtor alleging bad faith and fraud against bank on application for permission to amend. Involves pleading fraud and disclosure where party asserts disclosure complete.
• Acting for the (litigation funded) claimant in High Court high-value claims against directors and related parties arising out of the failure of medical claims company. Involves: statutory claims; claims for conspiracy; deceit; breach of fiduciary duty and trust; unjust enrichment; dishonest assistance in breach of trust; knowing receipt and estoppel (in various forms). Successful resistance of strike out on basis that pleading of de facto directorship defective (without the need for amendment).
• Acting for two of three defendants in High Court misfeasance proceedings pleaded at circa £68m which raised issues including: limitation; extensive argument as to the scope of the duties of a director/trustee, in particular as to the scope of s.172(3) of the Companies Act 2006; causation; and quantum arising out of a company engaged in tax planning for sophisticated investors. Case settled successfully at mediation before fifteen-day trial.
• Acting for petitioners on s.122(1)(g) Insolvency Act 1986 “just and equitable” winding-up petition involving interlinked and long-standing family businesses. Involves difficult evidential issues relating to recordings and the provenance of documents where allegations and cross-allegations of forgery and convening of board and shareholder meetings.
• Acting for Indian creditors in the winding-up in the Isle of Man of a holding company in relation to disputed claims concerning issues of proof, subrogation and separate proceedings in the the Isle of Man and the Supreme Court of India, and substantial assets in those jurisdictions, Bosnia, the US and the BVI.
• Re Burningnight Ltd [2020] EWHC 2663 (Ch) [2021] BCC 133 (for the administrators) (administration extensions opposed by significant creditors, factors relevant to discretion and jurisdiction to make winding-up order absent petition).