Aidan Casey QC’s practice covers all areas of commercial and business law, with a particular emphasis on international and domestic commercial fraud and the identification and recovery of the proceeds of crime in that sphere.
Aidan’s practice over recent years has involved a significant number of very heavyweight cases with a Russian / CIS element, and with associated offshore issues. These cases have included OJSC Aeroflot v Berezovsky & Forus Group Companies (acting for Aeroflot), Government of the Samara Region v Berezovsky (acting for the Government of the Samara Region of the Russian Federation), and OJSC Aeroflot v Berezovskaya ([2014] EWHC 70 (Ch), [2014] EWCA Civ 431, [2014] EWHC 3064 (Ch)). The latter case centred upon a dispute as to the control of the estate of the late Mr Boris Berezovsky, and involved complex and heavily contested applications as to privacy and confidentiality, and related ECHR issues, concerning information belonging to the family and estate of the late Arkady ‘Badri’ Patarkatsishvili.
He also regularly undertakes arbitration work, again often arising out of Russian / CIS disputes. He is currently instructed in a series of related LCIA and International Commercial Arbitration Court (Moscow) arbitrations, in a dispute concerning the ownership and control of one of Russia’s 30 largest banks. The case also has a Cypriot element and it raises issues as to the arbitrability of Russian corporate disputes. He is also currently instructed in an LCIA arbitration concerning a very large open-cast coal mine in Siberia, again with substantial Cypriot law elements and involving allegations of fraud and profit-stripping.
He is regularly instructed by banks and other institutions and clients in relation to fraud and associated banking and also trust-related work, and he regularly works in conjunction with lawyers in other jurisdictions (recent examples include Switzerland, Liechtenstein, the Bahamas, Jersey and the Isle of Man) on multijurisdictional claims involving fraud and misfeasance and associated issues ranging from trusts and ‘trust-busting’, and asset-tracing to corporate governance and regulatory issues.
Recent cases include:
- A successful appeal to the Court of Appeal in a proceeds of crime case involving wide-ranging issues of multi-jurisdictional asset-tracing, the corporate veil, and the validity and governance of a number of offshore trusts and corporate entities.
- A successful appearance in the Supreme Court in a case involving an attempt by the RCPO to pierce the corporate veil of a structure involving ‘one man’ companies and corporate directors.
- An appeal to the Privy Council acting for a well-known property developer in the Bahamas, in a case involving large-scale allegations of breach of mandate and unauthorised transfers, and also capacity issues.
- Representing a number of investors who have lost large sums of money in a ‘boiler room’ scam involving the sale of En Primeur wines.
