Stephen Atherton KC

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Contact with chambers should be made through the Practice Management Team. They are happy to discuss client requirements and provide further information on such matters as the expertise and experience of individual members, fees, working practices and languages spoken. We have members able to work in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Greek and Chinese (Mandarin).

Outside working hours, a member of our team is always available to be contacted on matters of an urgent nature. Contact should be made using the Chambers main number or email.

For our Singapore office, for client enquiries please contact our Head of Business Development for Asia Pacific, Katie-Beth Jones, and for all other queries please contact Lynn Quek. Out of office hours calls will automatically be diverted to our practice management team in London.

London

20 Essex Street
London
WC2R 3AL

enquiries@twentyessex.com
t: +44 20 7842 1200

Singapore

28 Maxwell Road
#02-03 Maxwell Chambers Suites
Singapore 069120

singapore@twentyessex.com
t: +65 62257230

Contact

Outside working hours, a member of our team is always available to be contacted on matters of an urgent nature. Contact should be made using the Chambers main number or email.

London

20 Essex Street
London
WC2R 3AL

enquiries@twentyessex.com
t: +44 20 7842 1200

Singapore

28 Maxwell Road
#02-03 Maxwell Chambers Suites
Singapore 069120

singapore@twentyessex.com
t: +65 62257230

Stephen’s practice comprises international and domestic corporate insolvency and restructuring, company law, civil aspects of international and domestic commercial fraud, personal insolvency, banking, general offshore and international commercial litigation, and international and domestic asset tracing.

He has considerable experience in commercial litigation, civil fraud and contentious insolvency proceedings in the UK, Hong Kong, Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Singapore, the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands (BVI), Jersey, Guernsey, Samoa, the Turks and Caicos Islands, St Kitts and Nevis, and the Isle of Man.

Stephen is admitted to the Bar of the Eastern Caribbean (BVI). He is also called to the Bars of Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, the Isle of Man, Samoa, and St Kitts and Nevis for specific cases. Stephen has rights of audience in Brunei Darussalam for specific cases.

He was named as Insolvency/Corporate Restructuring Silk of the year at the Chambers Bar Awards 2014.

Stephen has also provided expert evidence on English, Bermuda, BVI and Cayman Islands law for use in foreign proceedings, including proceedings in Singapore, South Africa, Hong Kong, New Hampshire, Washington DC and the Netherlands.

Download a full version of Stephen’s CV.

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Example cases

Re London Oil and Gas Ltd (In Administration) [2020] EWHC 35 (Ch): acting for the applicant director seeking an order that the out of court appointment of the administrators in relation to the company was a nullity. The court sought to rectify the position by making a new administration order on the application of one of the company’s creditors, but refused to make the order of appointment retrospective.
CFL Finance Ltd v Gertner [2019] BPIR 1327: acting for the successful petitioning creditor on the making of a bankruptcy order opposed by the debtor and another creditor.
Lady Moon SPV SRL v Petricca and Co Capital Ltd [2019] EWHC 439 (Ch): acting for the defendant company in relation to its successful application for a stay of proceedings based upon the legged insolvency of the defendant company and the Italian real estate fund which it administered.
Xie Zhikun v Xio GP Limited (2018) Cayman Islands Court of Appeal: acting for the appellant private equity firm in an appeal against the grating of a world- wide freezing injunction. The leading case in the jurisdiction concerning the principle of reflective loss.
Re Herald Fund SPC (unreported), 27 August 2018, Grand Court of the Cayman Islands (Kawaley J): instructed on behalf of the official liquidator of the Fund as regards the issue of whether statutory interest was payable on provable subordinated claims.
Shulman v Kolomoisky Ch D (Fancourt J) 19/10/2018: successful appeal against case management order staying an application to challenge jurisdiction. The claim against Mr Kolomoisky was dismissed for want of jurisdiction.
Gertner v CFL Finance Ltd [2018] EWCA Civ 1781: successful challenge to an individual voluntary arrangement proposed by a property tycoon once ranked amongst Britain’s richest individuals relating to £600 million debt.
Ctrip Investment Ltd v eHi Car Services Ltd (unreported), 29 June 2018 Grand Court of the Cayman Islands (Kawaley J): successful application to have what was described by the Court as a “cynical” and “abusive” just and equitable winding up petition.
Capital Partners Securities Co Ltd v Sturgeon Central Asian Balanced Fund Bermuda Court of Appeal [2018] CA (Bda) 5, Civ: dispute as to the proper interpretation of the bye-laws of a long-term investment fund and whether it was just and equitable to wind up the fund on the basis of an alleged wrongful amendment to the bye-laws.
Dana Gas PJSC v Dana Gas Sukuk Ltd and others [2018] EWHC 278 (Comm): legal and procedural issues concerning rights and obligations in respect of an Islamic bond.
Staray Capital Ltd v Cha (British Virgin Islands) [2017] UKPC 43: shareholder dispute in relation to a company that held shares in a mining project in Canada involving issues concerning directors’ powers and duties, minority shareholders rights and unfair prejudice.
Pearson v Primeo Fund (Cayman Islands) [2017] UKPC 19: issues concerning prioritisation of distribution in a liquidation between feeder hedge funds where the investment medium was redeemable shares.
Ronelp Marine Ltd v STX Offshore & Shipbuilding Co Ltd [2016] EWHC 2228 (Ch): successful application to lift a stay of the Commercial Court action imposed under the Cross-Border Insolvency Regulations following the defendant entering into Korean insolvency proceedings.
Lockston Group Inc v Wood [2016] 1 WLR 2091: issues relating to the date on which debts provable in a deceased’s insolvent estate were to be quantified, as well as the date on which debts are to be identified and when debts denominated in foreign currencies had to be converted into sterling for the purposes of proof.

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