Responsive, ruthlessly efficient, and user friendly.
Sara Roden
Managing Associate
Success can mean different things for different clients but, whatever the end game, success is what all clients are looking for when they instruct litigators. It requires strong communication, teamwork, and focus to achieve such success. Over the course of Sara’s career, she has developed a skillset which enables her to provide a personable, effective, and supportive service to her clients. Whether it is navigating the court system, entering into negotiations, or simply exploring your available options, Sara has an abundance of knowledge and experience to offer, and to help clients manage and resolve their disputes.
Case studies
Director and Shareholder Disputes
The breakdown in the relationship between shareholders and directors can often be compared to a divorce, particularly where relationships were previously based on mutual trust and confidence, and no formal agreement has been put in place as to how either person can exit the relationship.
Sara has extensive experience acting for both the aggrieved and defending shareholders to company disputes. This has included acting in relation to unfair prejudice petitions and securing negotiated outcomes via a restructuring of company interests.
She also acts for directors who may have concerns about the conduct of their co-directors or have themselves been accused of impropriety in their conduct of company affairs.
Recent examples include:
- Acting for a shareholder in bringing unfair prejudice proceedings concerning the management of night-time entertainment venues in London;
- Acting for a group of sibling shareholders/directors in defending unfair prejudice proceedings brought against them by their brother in respect of a family-owned property development company;
- Advising a director in relation to the unlawful appropriation of company assets by his co-directors, and securing those assets for the benefit of creditors by the intervention of administrators; and
- Advising shareholders in reaching a negotiated exit of an international trading company.
Sara has successfully brought claims against firms of solicitors, accountants, valuers, and other professionals in relation to their negligent provision of services that has resulted in loss. This has included:
- Achieving a settlement in respect of a claim against a Big Four accountancy firm for negligent personal tax advice, that also including defeating a limitation of liability clause in the retainer;
- Pursuing a claim against insurers under the Third Parties (Rights Against Insurers) Act 2010 to secure payment of a summary judgment after the law firm in question had made subject to a compulsory winding up order; and
- Securing a settlement against a commercial law firm in respect of negligent advice provided to a private bank in respect of security documents for a real estate financing project.
With a broad background in commercial disputes and litigation, Sara has the agility to deal with a wide variety of disputes.
Sara trained and qualified at a leading London West-End firm. She acts for a mixture of high-net-worth individuals, businesses, and corporations (including SMEs and international organisations). She has also acted for and against insolvency practitioners, in the context of both corporate insolvencies and individual bankruptcies.
Recent work has included:
- Securing a successful outcome at trial and on appeal in the High Court for the defendant to a claim concerning an oral agreement for the sale of shares in company that operates in the hospitality industry;
- Acting for a claimant in a US$50million SIAC administered UNCITRAL arbitration concerning gas exploration contracts in South Asia;
- Successfully discharging a world-wide freezing injunction obtained against an international shipping client in the English Commercial Court in support of extant LMAA arbitration proceedings;
- Advising in relation to unfair prejudice proceedings brought in respect of the holding company of two London Michelin-starred restaurants;
- Advising on and securing repayment of a disputed investment in a Cayman-based asset management company;
- Acting for a group of defendants to a spring-board relief injunction arising out of a contested team-move;
- Advising on and succeeding with a High Court claim brought by a FinTech company against what was at the time the world’s largest crypto-mining company; and
- Securing a landmark contempt judgment against a solicitor accused of misappropriating US$20m from his firm’s client account.
While Sara maintains a broad commercial practice that spans High Court litigation as well and various arbitration institutions and tribunals, she has an increasing focus on company, shareholder and director disputes.
Sara is an active member of RAIIDAR International, a networking group for asset recovery, dispute resolution and restructuring professionals.
In her spare time, Sara can be found in the front row of a spin class, traipsing through a muddy park with her cockapoo, or trying out new restaurants in South London.