Acted on a £multi-million dispute between two gas exploration companies concerning the breach of a joint venture gas exploration agreement for offshore Ghana. Acted for AXA PPP Healthcare Limited on a £multi-million dispute with an insurance broker in relation to a repudiatory breach of an exclusive distribution agreement. Acted for a HNW individual in relation to a complex £5m dispute arising from the provision of funding for a business acquisition, dealing with issues relating to insolvency and accusations of fraud. Acted for a property developer in a £7m dispute with a debt platform lender arising from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the development. Acted in multiple disputes between PMI providers and private hospitals. Defended various high-profile misselling claims against financial advice firms in relation to tax avoidance schemes, tax deferral schemes and overseas property schemes.

Acted on a dispute between a major pensions services provider and an IT developer in relation to the termination (for material breach) of an agreement to build a new pension administration platform. Advised a multi-national insurer on a business-critical dispute with its network hardware provider following repeated internet failures across its offices. Acted for a platform developer in a dispute with its JV partner following the partner seeking to terminate the relationship. Acted for a multinational financial services provider in relation to a dispute arising from a data lake development project. Acted for a multinational insurer in a dispute arising from the development of a new blockchain based insurance product.

Acted on a £15m shareholder dispute/unfair prejudice claim following the passing of a 50% shareholder. Acted for an international insurance broker in a dispute as to the correct calculation of deferred consideration under an SPA following an acquisition. Acted for a private equity fund in relation to a warranty claim following the purchase of a telecare services provider.

Acted for professional services firm advising on the legal and regulatory response to a ransomware attack, including reporting to the ICO, notifying affected data subjects and mitigating the effects the data breach. Also acted for the firm seeking damages from its IT services provider in relation to attack. Advised a multi-national financial services client in relation to the response to, and subsequent liability for, the loss of customer personal data by a third-party service provider. Acted for a retail customer on the response to a ransomware attack suffered by the supplier of business critical IT software, including reporting to the ICO, notifying data subjects and the supplier’s contractual obligations to restore service levels. Acted for a training school following a data breach, recovering misappropriated data and defending damages claims bought by data subjects whose data had been compromised Supervises a large caseload of data breach response advice and damages claims for various clients. Advised on a complex subject access request which required the use of a document review platform to review and filter over 74,000 documents.

Acted for numerous NHS Trusts defending applications to review decisions to award various outsourced services including private ambulances, cleaning contracts and linen services. Acted for an event company in relation to a procurement challenge against a local authority. The client had run a successful race event at the same location every year for over 25 years. The local authority put out to tender the opportunity to run the event despite not holding any rights in the event itself. A negotiated resolution was reached and the event continues to be held successfully. Acted for a care home provider challenging the decision of a local authority not to award it a framework agreement. This would have been business critical for the care home, but the matter was successfully resolved in its favour. Acting on a dispute between a major pensions services provider and an IT developer in relation to the termination (for material breach) of a framework agreement to build a new pension administration platform. Acted on a dispute between a multi-national financial services company with an IT developer in relation to missed deliverables under a framework agreement for the development of a new business critical IT platform and data lake. The dispute was successful resolved with revised deliverables and credits to allow for the successful completion of the projects.

Tom Llewellyn | Ashfords

Q: Fraud and Injunctions

Acted on a high profile breach of confidence claim for a leading insurance broker, seeking injunctive relief and damages. This case set a high-watermark for the interim deletion of misappropriated confidential information. (Arthur J. Gallagher Service UK ltd v Skriptchenkov and others [2016] EWHC 603) Obtained a freezing order following the misappropriation of over £1m by a senior claims manager for a financial services firm. Successfully recovered the majority of the funds taken. Acted for a specialist construction company, obtaining injunctive relief and significant damages against two employees and a competitor, following attempts by the employees to transfer clients to the competitor shortly before moving. Acted for an international franchise based in Canada, obtaining injunctive relief against one of its former UK franchisees for breach of contract, breach of confidence, copyright infringement, passing off and trademark infringement

Biography

Tom is a partner in our Commercial Disputes Team, having joined the firm in May 2023.

Tom specialises in commercial disputes, fraud, injunctive relief, company disputes, and contentious data protection matters, focussing on the financial services, TMT, healthcare, public and energy sectors.

Tom regularly acts on matters relating to outsourced services contracts, SaaS contracts, platform development agreements, distribution agreements, warranty claims, shareholder disputes, insurance coverage, procurement disputes, and professional negligence claims.

Tom has a particular specialism in crisis management work, including fraud and injunctions. He regularly obtains search and seizure orders, freezing orders, injunctions recovering and preventing the misuse of confidential information, and injunctions enforcing restrictive covenants.

Tom also advises clients on regulatory and contentious data protection matters. He defends claims arising from data breaches, advises on responses to data breaches and cyber security incidents, and advises on preventative steps.

In addition, whilst Tom typically acts on complex litigation, he has set up and run multiple managed-service arrangements to provide cost efficient solutions for in-house legal teams seeking to manage low value disputes. Tom has also had numerous in-house secondments in both a contentious and non-contentious capacity.

Relevant experience