Adam Al-Attar
Barrister, South Square

Adam has a split practice divided between insolvency and restructuring, and commercial matters, in particular, banking, financial services and the law of trusts.  He acts both as junior counsel, as a sole advocate and as a leader.

Adam has had substantial experience of bank and fund insolvencies.  In the period 2009 to 2019, he has acted in relation to the insolvencies of Lehman Brothers, MF Global and certain Madoff feeder funds, appearing in many of the leading cases in that decade.

Adam has also appeared in many of the leading contested restructuring cases including IMO Car Wash, Apcoa, Ocean Rig, and Lehman.  He has a substantial restructuring practice in the UK and offshore jurisdictions.  Recent cases include New Look, Travelodge, PizzaExpress, KCA Deutag, Matalan, Castle Trust, Nero Holdings and Amigo 2.

Adam’s commercial work involves cases in the Commercial Court and the Chancery Division.  In 2019, he was part of the team that restored the world-wide freezing injunction in Privatbank v Kolomoisky [2020] 2 WLR 993, CA.  Recent cases in which Adam appeared as the sole advocate or as leading counsel include Banco San Juan v PDVSA [2020] EWHC 2145 (Comm) and [2020] EWHC 2937 (Comm), in which Adam acted for the bank on its summary judgment application against the Venezuelan state oil company; and IS Prime v TF Global Markets (UK) Limited in which Adam acts for the claimant broker.  The case has produced a series of judgments to date concerning the Arbitration Act 1996, the ‘passing on’ defence in unjust enrichment and when a fiduciary duty is owed between brokers transacting in currencies and index swaps.