Jimmy Ogunshakin

Overview

A commercial dispute barrister, Jimmy has over 30 years’ experience as a lawyer, in commerce and the public sector, with an emphasis on all aspect of corporate employment advisory, litigation and business protection law. He is a dual qualified lawyer. He will shortly passport across his litigation expertise as a solicitor, to the Bar through the Public Access service offering to clients.


Jimmy frequently appears in the High Court in interim application and winding up petition proceedings in Insolvency proceedings at the Company and Insolvency courts, and the Business and property courts in injunctive relief proceedings. He also acts on instructions from criminal law firms in criminal defence matters before the magistrates and crown courts, where he conducts his own advocacy. Jimmy acts for and defends clients in commercial litigation relating to employment disputes in the county courts, employment tribunals, the EAT and High Court. His clients have included international companies, diplomatic missions, trade unions and senior executives in relation to exit strategies.


Before coming to the Bar, Jimmy practised as a solicitor-advocate undertaking where appropriate, his own advocacy in the county and high courts in civil and commercial matters. He also received instructions in criminal defence matters appearing before magistrates’ courts in all proceedings including application and or case management, pre-trial, and trial and sentencing hearings.


Jimmy started his career as a lawyer in Banking, Commerce, and for a period of time, in the public sector. He worked for the UK’s largest local authority before joining a Top 50 UK law firm and in two leading regional firms before founding his own Practice in July 2008. Jimmy has acted for several international multimillion-pound concerns in the Automotive, Consumer Finance banking, Manufacturing and Healthcare sectors.


Jimmy understands the challenges and pressures faced by solicitor sole practitioners, partners, and owners of law firms. He has and continues to receive instructions in disciplinary and regulatory matters, having represented professionals before allied medical regulatory bodies such as the HCPC, and NMC, in Committee Fitness to Practice all the way to Sanctions proceedings, as well as undertaking judicial review proceedings before the High Court.


Over the last two decades, Jimmy has amassed a breadth of experience working with Boards and Trustees on corporate governance, regulatory risk and compliance issues, resolution of board disputes, drawing from his own NED experience, which include being a Chairman of the Board of a well-established Social Housing Association.


Specialities

As a specialist senior litigator, and a solicitor-advocate, he acts for his clients in civil court proceedings; acting for businesses and public sector clients in matters relating to property disputes, contractual disputes, injunctive relief proceedings with particular experience of bringing and defending asset freezing injunctions, civil and commercial disputes as well as taking cases to Trials which have been known to last up to 7 weeks.


He has considerable experience advising on business and constitutional structures and has acted for charities in both the non-for-profit sectors and the Social-housing sectors. His ‘hands on experience’ has included acting as a founding Trustee and Chair of a Christian based Charity, a Board Member, Chair of HR & Equalities Committee, and a Chair of a Nominations committee, acting for a business client as a Corporate Secretary and until recent, the Chair of Residential Social housing organisation with a turnover of over £12 million pounds.


Other activities

Jimmy was a Visiting Lecturer in Law at Birmingham City University School of Law, where taught and tutored postgraduate students on the Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice Course, assisting the Academic lead and Program Director, in discharging her responsibilities with the delivery of the SRA Approved program. In addition to teaching core modules such as the Business Law and Practice module, he assessed, invigilated, and examined, students on this vocational course being the final component in preparing aspiring solicitors for their professional legal careers.


Jimmy also lectured elective modules – Commercial and Intellectual Property Law and Practice and in Employment law and Practice. He was module leader for the Commercial Law and Intellectual Property module (2018-19).


Call to the Bar (E & W): 2022
Admission to the Roll: 2002
HCA Qualification: 2013
Email Address: [email protected]
Direct Dial: 07792 895423
Academic qualifications

  • LLM International Dispute Resolution (Queen Mary University of London) (2023)


  • LLM International Commercial Law (University of Salford/RKC, Zurich) (2019)


  • PGDip LPC and Admission to the Roll of Solicitors (2002)


  • LLB (Hons) Law, UCE Birmingham (1992)


Affiliations & Professional Qualifications

  • Student Member (1992) and Member of the Honorary Society of Lincoln’s Inn (2022)


  • A Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (‘FCILEx’) (1999 – 2019)


  • Graduate Member, The Chartered Governance Institute (‘GradCG’) (2017-19)


  • Member of the Association of Governance Practitioners (‘MGP’) (2012 -22)


Current Cases

  • Advising a Board of Directors of an Irish based Parent company with two UK subsidiary companies in which actions against an underperforming director, includes potential s994 Unfair prejudice and injunctive relief proceedings coupled with removal of a shareholder director of all three companies.


  • Advising and representing a care provider company in a complex multiparty claim brought by employees recently transferred across under TUPE provisions, in which the client is one of five respondents joined to the litigation and the ensuing proceedings before two employment tribunals.


  • Representing an agency client company based in Cyprus, in a breach of contract claim brought by the principal in Turkey, against a UK based manufacturing company.


Samples of Recent cases

  • Successfully obtaining Validation orders for clients in the Insolvency and Company Courts at the RCJ (High Court), saving viable businesses in financial hardship, with relief that would mean they do not cease trading and to have a good prospect of surviving via CVAs.


  • Instructed and continues to receive instructions from a national law firm providing Platinum level panel criminal defence advocacy in the magistrates’ court on numerous road traffic related offences; acting for another national law firm business client in environmental protection matters and in relation to tax fraud offences brought by HMRC via the Crown Prosecution Service, in the magistrates’ court. He appears in the Crown Court in appeals in related matters.


  • Advised on the enforceability of a Retention of Title clause in a Distribution Agreement between an International Entertainment company and a UK distributor company putting up guarantee of a Third-Party subsidiary divisional company to the value of £45,000,000.00. The ROT clause was intended to be triggered upon insolvency of the UK distributor company (2020-21).


  • Acting for business clients in defending a number of worker status related claims before the ET (2019 -20).


  • Advised two separate Foreign Diplomatic Missions taking and acting on instructions from Ambassadors, Deputy Head of Missions, and Consular lawyers in London on the effect UK and EU Labour laws on their staff, Employee status and the relevance on their special status as diplomats of the Immunity laws of England & Wales (2018-20);


  • Acted for a Claimant in ADR proceedings intended to avoid protracted litigation in a case agreed between the parties will become disproportionately costly, in a long employment dispute with a major manufacturer of Automobiles involving Unfair Dismissal, harassment and a disability discrimination claim brought under long Relation issues, UK and EU Employment law, Diplomatic Immunity law around the lawfulness of staff dismissals (2018), and successfully representing clients within the haulage and logistics sector in an Import Tax duty dispute against HMRC before the First Tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber) (2018-19);


  • Advising an International client from Turkey in the textile sector, in a claim against a clearing bank following the unlawful freezing of the client’s business accounts causing the client to result to aggressive action against the Bank in order to maintain liquidity and viability with creditors insisting on compliance with contractual terms or compensation for breach of purchase orders (2017-18);


  • Acted for clients in Mediation to a commercial dispute (Contract), a contentious probate matter involving a challenge of an executor’s duty in the discharge of the deceased’s affairs and the estate and in a claim for £400,000 of commercial revolving loan facility between a lender/investor and an international paint company client, etc. (2017-18)


  • Acted for two directors in the defence of breach of employment, confidentiality and restrictive covenant claims brought by their former employer which resulted in litigation both in the High Court (TCC) and on appeal to the Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Coppage & Others v Safetynet Security Ltd [2013] EWCA Civ 1176