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Escalate has been employed by an insolvency practitioner who is the liquidator of a company.

The company has no liquid assets, but it has several claims against the former directors who received significant sums from the company prior to liquidation, to the detriment of the creditors.

The lack of funds would typically prevent the liquidator from pursuing any actions to recover assets. However, Escalate has overcome this obstacle has achieved a recovery of more than £150,000 and a real return to creditors in the insolvency.

An organisation provided a service to people in the care of a local authority. It took out an insurance policy to cover litigation costs in circumstances where there was a significant threat to the viability of the company.

When the local authority threatened to withdraw all its operations a process of litigation, paid for by the insurance policy, was started.

Without notice and shortly before trial, the insurer changed its stance and withdrew funding, resulting in an adverse court decision that caused the client a significant loss. The client wished to challenge both the insurer and its solicitor who withdrew services when the insurer stopped paying.

Escalate has arranged a suitable platform upon which to pursue its claim, targetting the insurer and the solicitor in circumstances where the client would otherwise have had no opportunity of making a recovery. There are now 2 separate cases being litigated: a contractual dispute claiming £1.5m and professional negligence for £400k.

The client had purchased products from a large supplier for use on its customers’ floors. The product was defective, which resulted in the customers’ floors failing after a short period. The client was faced with claims from its customers in the region of £3 million.

The client did not have the financial resources to be able to pursue such a significant claim against a large multi-national company. The defendant knew this and delayed matters to force the claimant to incur further costs so it had no option but to drop the claim or settle it quickly.

After spending a year failing to make any headway the client was introduced to Escalate. Once engaged we quickly moved to issue and serve proceedings.

The matter went to mediation and c£1m was offered but this is not enough. The hearing is set for February 2019 although we suspect it will settle well in advance of that to avoid costs.

A software company entered into a joint venture with a large property management consultancy to allow its application to be commercially exploited in return for a share of the revenue flow. The software company believed that the consultancy firm had generated revenue from the product and requested details but received none.

Solicitors were instructed but no progress was made. The next step was for the claimant to seek full disclosure via the courts and then issue proceedings, but it did not have the funds for this. With its solicitors’ approval, the case was moved to Escalate.

There was no real movement from the defendant during the Path A mediation process, just a paltry £40,000 settlement offer which was rejected because the defendant would still not provide the information needed. Proceedings were issued for full disclosure which caused the defendant to admit owing £300,000 – subsequently increased to £350,000 which has now been paid.

“I have had the pleasure of working with the Francis Clark M&A team a number of times and specifically at times when we were undertaking an MBO and an AIM listing. Quite simply they take the grief out of what can be stressful situations by providing a very real understanding of the challenge thereby delivering excellent advice and clear options while they manage the process competently and securely. They are the best that I have worked with.”

“The whole family were very pleased with the teams at PKF Francis Clark in the way they handled the complex negotiations involved, as it was a very good deal for both parties, and, I have to say, we always felt like we were in very safe hands with the whole team of advisors.”

“PKF Francis Clark was there every step to help us through what they made feel like a stress-free deal. Their expertise and professionalism excelled throughout the deal and they carried out a large amount of work behind the scenes enabling us to continue to run a very busy business. It was a pleasure to work with them and I would not hesitate in recommending PKF Francis Clark.”

“You’ve done so much more than just making it happen, you’ve also steered the process in such a way as to give the business the very best chance of success. When this all started it was not at all clear how the deal could be structured in order to give us both the control that we were seeking and the financial backing that the business needed. Now we find ourselves with each of these objectives fully met and we are both very grateful for that. You said at the start that you’d be available at any time that we needed to speak to you personally or to any member of your team and you’ve been true to that promise all the way through.”

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