Christine is a member of the Commercial Litigation team. Having worked in City firms Herbert Smith and Stephenson Harwood, she has over 30 years of national and international experience in resolving all legal issues that businesses may face. She has joined Gorvins from Manchester city centre.
Christine has handled disputes between shareholders and partners, between buyers and sellers of businesses, media and IP issues and any others contentious matters relating to business. She also has extensive experience in construction and building cases.
With a deep understanding of the strain put on a business and its directors of litigation, her approach a problem is to look for an achievable objective that suits her client and to aim for it. She does not believe in scoring points or fighting where conciliation will get a result that better fits the needs of her client. Christine's awareness of the cost of litigation steers her towards finding an outcome without going to trial.
Christine's experience is with big number cases with complex issues and evidence. Her opponents are generally City of London firms or top tier firms in Manchester.
Successful cases include
Business
- A £4.5m breach of warranty claim on a sale share agreement
- A claim for a group of shareholders arising out of the mis-selling of shares under a misleading prospectus
- Claims for minority shareholders rights
- Putting a partner in a limited partnership in a position where he could get out of his agreement with his partners and still preserve his interest on the partnership assets.
- Advising a shareholder on how get a company back from his co-shareholder who did not want to sell
- Bringing an action against a well known factoring company who cut off a client's credit wrongfully.
- A claim for product liability where product was sold but the customer claimed the seller had given negligent advice as to application and performance. There were parallel proceedings against the client's insurers and brokers when the insurers refused to indemnify the cost of proceedings.
Construction
- A multi party action involving a claim for damages when a housing estate under construction sank because it was built on weak ground. Again there were parallel proceedings against insurers
- A claim against a builder who installed a defective floor slab
- A claim for defective construction of a steel framed building
- Advising a building contractor whose client had wrongfully allowed others to enter the site with possibly serious consequences if anyone was injured. The case involved an understanding relevant insurance
- A claim arising out of the collapse of a building under construction arising from excavation of the footings
- Advising on the meaning and effect of variations to standard construction contracts.
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