Lauren Kreamer

Lauren accepts instructions in all aspects of commercial law. She has appeared, led and as sole counsel, in numerous High Court trials relating to contractual disputes, breaches of directors’ and fiduciary duties, fraud, and the sale of goods and services, and is regularly instructed in urgent injunction applications, including worldwide freezing orders. Lauren has also appeared as sole counsel in the Court of Appeal, including in a well-publicised dispute over a sale and purchase agreement relating to Charlton Athletic football club, in relation to which she was named The Lawyer’s ‘Barrister of the Week’.

Lauren has also had extensive involvement in high-value commercial disputes and international arbitration, including working as part of an in-house team on a multi- billion-pound arbitration concerned with the purported termination of a series of investment agreements. She has also worked on numerous matters with cross-border elements, including the United States, India, Israel, Panama, the BVI, the Seychelles, and other offshore jurisdictions.

She also regularly acts in contested applications for summary judgment and applications for procedural sanctions, including in relation to disclosure and evidence following the implementation of the new Practice Directions in relation to the same (on which she has given seminars).

Lauren also has experience of regulatory issues and ring fencing of retail and investment banking. She has recently acted for an asset finance company in relation to ongoing dealings with the Financial Ombudsman Service, including advising in relation to challenges to the FOS’s decisions.

Recent instructions include:

• Ziff v Ziff [2023] (Ch) – acted for the claimant in a claim that the defendant had, by way of a forged stock transfer form, caused the shareholding in a company to be transferred from the claimant’s name into the defendant’s sole name. Settled two weeks before trial.
• VLM v LPB [2023] – acted for the claimant in an interim injunction application which necessitated the making of anonymity orders due to the sensitivity of the information involved.
• Acting as sole counsel acting for the claimant, a technology company, in a $40m claim pertaining to breaches by the defendant of a consulting agreement and unjust enrichment. The parties are also involved in litigation in Florida and Lauren has worked closely with the US legal team throughout. The claim has involved various (heavily contested) interlocutory applications, including for security for costs.
• Acting for the claimant in a successful claim to recover a seven figure sum arising out of a loan arrangement entered into on a relatively informal basis, and in the ongoing enforcement proceedings.
• Acting for the defendant (a well-known retailer) in a claim relating to the supply of goods.
• Acting for the claimant in a multi-million pound dispute arising out of a loan agreement, involving allegations of forgery and conspiracy, as well as breaches of FSMA, by the defendants.
• Acting for the defendant in a multi-million pound claim regarding an SPA and the shareholdings in various entities, involving allegations of sham in relation to trusts arrangements and claims in deceit and conspiracy.
• Lazuli Properties Ltd v Bhundia [2022] EWHC 758 (Ch) – acted for the four defendants (led by Shantanu Majumdar KC) in disputes pertaining to their role as property managing agents for the claimants and to a joint venture for the development of a property.
• Re Dawson [2022] EWHC 341 (Ch), a probate claim in which the defendants counterclaimed in proprietary estoppel.
• Patel v Essack & Nawab [2021] – acted for the claimants in a multi-million pound claim relating to an investment in a property development in the UK (where the parties were all located overseas) and the ownership of the vehicle through which the investment was made.
• Global Metals AG v Colony Capital Ltd [2020] EWHC 3361 (QB) – acted for the defendants in a summary judgment application in claims alleging fraud and dishonesty. Lauren had also represented the defendants in earlier applications for worldwide freezing orders and other injunctions.
• Lex Dominus Ltd v Panorama Magic General Contracting LLC [2020] 9 WLUK 180 – acted for the defendant, the majority owner of the parent company of Charlton Athletic Football Club, opposing an application for an interim injunction restraining the sale of the football club in the High Court, and on appeal to the Court of Appeal.
• Standard Life Aberdeen v Lloyds [2019] – arbitration concerning the management of £110bn in assets. The dispute concerned the enforceability of clauses in an asset management contract following a merger between Standard Life and Aberdeen Asset Management after which, Lloyds contended, Standard Life Aberdeen had become its competitor.
• Gavin Willis Creative Marketing Limited v Inschoolwear [2019] – acted for the defendant in a claim for breach of contract pertaining to the design and build of an ecommerce website.

Lauren is regularly instructed to advise and represent office holders, creditors and debtors at hearings concerning personal, partnership, and company insolvency. She often appears as a sole advocate in the High Court and County Court, and has extensive experience of insolvency and company applications, including obtaining interim and final charging orders, applications for public and private examinations, bankruptcy petitions and the annulment of bankruptcy orders, orders for the sale of property, income payment orders, winding up petitions and injunctions to restrain their advertisement, applications for administration orders and their extension, and applications in relation to office-holder remuneration. Lauren is regularly instructed to advise and act in relation to complex reviewable transactions, misfeasance and breach of fiduciary duties claims involving TUVs, preferences and transactions defrauding creditors. She also has experience of company director disqualification.

Alongside her insolvency and company practice, Lauren also has extensive experience of corporate restructuring. She has been instructed to advise and appear (both led and as sole counsel) in relation to schemes of arrangement under Part 26 of the Companies Act 2006 and has advised in relation to Part 26A restructuring plans as well as CVAs.

Her work includes:

• Re Radeva (in bankruptcy) [2023] EWHC 594 (Ch) – acted for the trustees in bankruptcy of Manuela Radeva in an application pertaining to the trustees’ costs, remuneration and expenses of the bankruptcy, where neither the trustees nor the creditor who had applied for the annulment, which was made on COMI grounds, were at fault for the bankruptcy order having been made.
• In Re A Company [2023] – acted for the applicant in a successful application for an injunction to restrain advertisement of a winding up petition of a well-known company, as well as past and prospective validation orders in relation to the company’s ongoing trading activities.
• Acting for the defendants (led by Avtar Khangure KC) in a claim for breaches of duty, knowing receipt, dishonest assistance, and assorted trusts claims arising out of the beneficial ownership of a property.
• Acting for the claimant assignees of a number of different (ongoing) claims by liquidators against directors for unlawful payments made in breach of statutory and fiduciary duties, transactions at an undervalue, preferences and unlawful distributions.
• Acting for the supervisor of an IVA in a bankruptcy petition, resulting in a two-day trial on numerous technical arguments raised by the debtor, including the interpretation of the Insolvency Act 1986 as it stood prior to the coming into force of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013. Awaiting judgment being handed down.
• In Re A Company [2022] – acted for the company in obtaining the dismissal of a winding up petition at the directions stage where the petition was disputed on COMI grounds and on the basis of governing law clauses in agreements pertaining to a group of companies with subsidiaries in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
• The Mount Group Student NatEx Ltd [2022] – acted for a Saudi Arabian entity which, along with some 600 other investors from around the world, had invested significant sums into the development of student accommodation in Liverpool, in an application by the administrators of the company to sell the land and partly-developed property.
• Re Sunbird Business Services Ltd [2020] EWHC 2860 (Ch), [2020] EWHC 2493 (Ch) – acted (led by Henry Phillips) for the objecting creditors in a scheme of arrangement, where the court declined to sanction the scheme in its first iteration and sanctioned it at the second attempt by the company.
• Re Sunbird Business Services Ltd [2020] EWHC 3691 (Ch) – acted for the petitioning creditor in an application relating to the costs of an application to restrain advertisement of a winding up petition, where an issues-based approach was taken by the judge, in circumstances where two of the three grounds had been hopeless.
• In Re A Company [2020] EWHC 1551 (Ch) – acted for the petitioning creditor in an application for an injunction restraining advertisement of a winding up petition which had been presented at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic, shortly before CIGA 2020 was enacted. This was one of the first decisions on the new legislation.

• 2010-14: BA in Jurisprudence (with Law in Europe), Magdalen College, University of Oxford
• 2012-13: Certificat Supérieur de Droit Français et Européen, Université Panthéon-Assas (Paris II)
• 2014-15: BPTC, City University, London

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VAT Registration Number: 263328604
Bar Membership Number: 68619