Louis Grandjouan
Call: 2022
Louis has a busy chancery practice and welcomes instructions across Chambers’ core practice areas. He appears regularly in the High Court and County Court and has appellate experience.
Louis formerly practised in the London and New York offices of a leading US law firm, where he worked primarily on cross-border finance and restructuring transactions. He is admitted as a solicitor (England & Wales – non-practising) and attorney (New York).
In 2020-2021, Louis was the judicial assistant to Lord Stephens in the UK Supreme Court and Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. He worked closely on many appeals raising points of law of general public importance, across a wide range of areas.
Louis is regularly instructed in commercial disputes, including cases involving allegations of misrepresentation, deceit, or conspiracy. His commercial cases often involve a company or partnership law element, such as disputes between directors, shareholders or partners, derivative actions, or unfair prejudice petitions.
As judicial assistant to Lord Stephens, Louis worked closely on a number of important commercial chancery cases, including:
- CPS v Aquila Advisory [2021] UKSC 49 (whether proprietary claim brought by company against directors in breach of fiduciary duty can be asserted in priority to confiscation order).
- Matthew and others v Sedman [2021] UKSC 19 (correct approach to calculation of limitation periods in midnight deadline cases).
Louis is frequently instructed to advise or act in proceedings on behalf of insolvency practitioners, creditors and debtors, in both corporate and personal insolvency. He deals regularly with winding-up and bankruptcy petitions and related applications (including setting aside statutory demands, applications for annulment or for injunctions to restrain advertisement) and applications by officeholders, such as applications for administration orders, examinations, and cases involving allegations of misfeasance, transactions at an undervalue or preferences. Recent representative instructions include an application for an administration order with retrospective effect on behalf of an administrator in her capacity as a creditor.
He also has experience of advising in relation to cross-border insolvency proceedings, including applications for recognition under the Cross-Border Insolvency Regulations 2006.
As a solicitor and attorney, Louis worked primarily on cross-border finance and restructuring transactions, including:
- advising the ad hoc committee of senior secured noteholders in relation to the financial restructuring and recapitalisation of a UK-based offshore and subsea services group.
- advising a US-based offshore drilling group in Chapter 11 bankruptcy on its refinancing and restructuring.
- advising a UK and Netherlands-based multinational capital goods group in respect of its debt programmes.
- advising a Netherlands-based multinational health technology group in respect of the establishment of, and subsequent issuances under, a debt programme.
- advising a Canadian mining group in respect of a project financing for a gold mine in Mauritania.
Louis has a particular interest in trusts and welcomes instructions in this area. He regularly appears in the High Court and County Court in a variety of trust disputes, including applications to remove trustees, claims for breach of trust, applications under the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996, and claims for accounts and recovery of assets.
As judicial assistant to Lord Stephens, Louis worked closely on:
- Equity Trust (Jersey) Ltd v Halabi (Jersey) and ITG Ltd and others v Fort Trustees Ltd and another (Guernsey) [2022] UKPC 36 (status of a trustee’s right of indemnity in relation to a Jersey law trust; and order of priorities as between trustees and trust creditors).
- Rittson-Thomas and others v Oxfordshire County Council [2021] UKSC 13 (scope of trustees’ powers of sale in respect of a charitable trust of land).
Louis is regularly instructed to advise or act in proceedings involving claims under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependents) Act 1975; claims against administrators and executors; claims relating to testamentary capacity or involving allegations of undue influence, mutual wills, or common intention constructive trusts.
Louis has experience of acting as part of a team instructed on behalf of HMRC in high-value and complex tax disputes. He also advises in his own right in relation to a variety of tax matters, both contentious and non-contentious, particularly in relation to the taxation of trusts.
As a pupil, he was exposed to a number of complex tax disputes involving avoidance schemes, including the Ingenious litigation before the Court of Appeal (Ingenious Games LLP and ors v HMRC [2022] EWCA Civ 1015: application under CPR r.52.30 to seek to re-open the refusal of permission to appeal).
As judicial assistant to Lord Stephens in the Supreme Court, Louis worked closely on R (Haworth) v HMRC [2021] UKSC 25 (interpretation of HMRC’s obligations under follower notice regime).
Louis regularly advises on property law issues and has been instructed in a wide range of property law disputes, including possession claims, forfeiture claims, and disputes raising to service charges.
Louis graduated from the University of Oxford with a first-class degree in Law (Jurisprudence) in 2016. He was an exhibitioner and subsequently a scholar of University College, Oxford where he was awarded the Alan Urbach Memorial Prize for Jurisprudence. In 2022 Louis benefited from a Pegasus Scholarship grant to meet with judges at the US Supreme Court and other US federal and state courts.
Louis is bilingual in French and is happy to accept instructions in French.
- Christ Church, the Dean and the Charity Commission, Private Client Business, P.C.B. 2023, 1, 34-40
- Boilerplate terms restricting freedoms in composite transactions: some traps for the unwary, Simon Mills and Louis Grandjouan Butterworths Journal of International Banking & Financial Law, B.J.I.B. & F.L. 2024, 39(2), 97-99
- Case Report: Hex Technologies Ltd & ors v DCBX Ltd, Corporate Rescue and Insolvency (2023) 3 CRI 111
- Chancery Bar Association
- Lincoln’s Inn
- L’Association des Juristes Franco-Britanniques / The Franco-British Lawyers Society
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