Head of asset
finance: James Baird
No. of partners
(assistants): 10 (12)
Key lessor
clients: ING Lease (UK) Ltd, BNP Paribas Group, BMW
Finance, GMAC, Scania Finance, Paragon Group of Companies Plc,
Arkle Finance Limited, BT Fleet
Key lease broker
clients: Kennett Equipment Leasing Ltd, Corporate
Credit Ltd
Key manufacturer
clients: N/A
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gained in 2009: Arian Finance Ltd, County Asset Finance Ltd,
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James Baird’s small but formidable asset
finance litigation group continues to punch well above its weight.
Comprised of just two partners, Baird and Melanie Chell, and six
fee earners, it has been involved over recent months in many of the
asset finance fraud cases reported in the pages of this magazine –
Thorneycroft, Gwent Fleet Management Ltd, Global EPP and Euro UK
Hire Ltd – as well as many others.
The firm recently won an important judgment in
connection with the Lifestyle TV Ltd scandal. Roughly 60 percent of
the work of Baird’s team is contentious asset finance work, the
rest being consumer related contentious work.
Baird added: “On the car finance litigation
work it typically involves entrepreneurs who have fallen on hard
times, while other work involves lessees which are involved in
criminal activity.”
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By GlobalDataIncluded in its growing bevy of overseas work
has been its involvement in the seizure of luxury cars from
dockyards at Antwerp. When acting in jurisdictions outside the UK
it often makes use of the services of partner law firms for
assistance on local law issues. Baird also regularly uses HBJ’s own
lawyers based at the firm’s Dubai office (which also does a fair
amount of ship and marine finance work).
Baird’s litigation team last year managed to
increase business volumes by a handsome 21 percent and 31 percent
during the first six months of this year.
However, his team represents, in fact, a quite
small proportion of the whole of HBJ’s asset finance
capability.
In charge of the shipping and transport
business – which does a lot of yacht finance contentious and
non-contentious work – is Jane Hobbs, who joined HBJ when the firm
merged with Holmes Hardingham in June 2008.
Yachting work represents a significant part of
the work of Hobbs’ unit. Richard Coles, who joined HBJ in 2007 when
the firm merged with Shaw & Croft, is a well-known practitioner
on superyacht non-contentious work, while David Johnstone does both
contentious and non-contentious work. Her department is acting for
Ansbacker & Co in the funding of the purchase of a super
yacht.
All asset finance transactional work, except
that done by Hobbs’ team, is carried out by HBJ’s banking team.
Recent work includes advising Bank of Scotland on “facilities
provided to a substantial plant hire business”, and advising BT
Fleet on agreeing and documenting service and maintenance contracts
for companies in the energy, water, government and police
sectors.
It is also acting for LDC, the private equity
arm of the Lloyds Banking Group, on its investment in Kimberley
Access, a tele-
handling operator. Key asset finance partners in the firm’s banking
team are Philip Alton and Carol Betts.
Insolvency related work, meanwhile, is covered
by the firm’s corporate recovery team. The overall head is Mark
Wilson, while Louise Bell, among others, does asset finance
recovery work. This team recently acted for KPMG as administrators
of Blue Cube Rentals.
