Expert witness in a series of cases brought by a series of clients in relation to the banking crisis

Our clients were considering a claim in relation to the manner in which ‘Bail-in’ processes were invoked to remediate the financial difficulties of a number of financial services institutions. Our clients wanted an expert analysis of the basis of the decisions taken to assess whether there was a realistic chance of success in a court case.

We analysed a large number of documents relating to the situation before, during and after the ‘bail-in’. This included assessing the decisions taken by the impacted financial institutions (that led to their difficulties), the subsequent steps taken by various third parties to remediate the financial difficulties and the consequential impact this had on the underlying customers. Materially, the expert witness work was to provide a summary analysis of the systems and controls of specific third party firms and whether any matters arose that could provide grounds for a claim having a potentially positive outcome.

Having performed an analysis of a range of internal and third party reports, governance papers and commercial strategy data, we performed a more detailed analysis of specific decisions taken by certain financial institutions in a narrower timeframe. This was to determine whether they may have been conduct related issues that could give rise to a claim.

Our analysis helped the claimants and their lawyers assess the prospects for making successful claims. This helped them to manage their claims cases more effectively and avoid pursuing claims on a risk / rewards basis where the investment of money and time into proceedings was unlikely to be beneficial.