Thomas Croxford

High Court employment experience includes injunctive relief in relation to confidentiality and competition problems and wrongful dismissal claims. Particular experience of obtaining injunctive relief in relation to miscreant employees in relation to misappropriation of confidential or other corporate information and breaches of covenants or fiduciary duties.

Employment Tribunal, Employment Appeal Tribunal and Court of Appeal experience in a broad range of cases concerning unfair dismissal, redundancy, TUPE and domestic and European discrimination law, acting for Applicants and Respondents in both the private sector and the public sector.

Able to combine the commercial and employment experience to provide assistance in relation to, for example, the litigation problems created by the dismissal of shareholder directors, the removal of partners and the problems raised by the termination of consultancy contracts in the financial services industry.

Tom has particular expertise in the following areas:

Covenants and Confidentiality:

• Acted for RDF Media in very high profile claim against vendor shareholder (Kirsty Wark’s husband) – RDF Media v Clements [2008] IRLR 207
• Acted for recruitment agency in confidentiality claim (Richmond Medical Agency v Bassom [2004] EWHC 1252 (QB)
• Acted for stockbrokers in a confidentiality and restraint of trade claim against a former senior stockbroker
• Used the Competition Act 1998 to attack restrictive covenants contained within a confidentiality agreement entered into prior to the auction of a company.
• Acted for the Duke of Westminster in obtaining an injunction against his former housekeeper preventing her from revealing confidential information to newspapers.
• Sought, obtained and resisted delivery up, confidential information, database right infringement, springboard, fiduciary duty and covenant-based injunctions.

Whistleblowing:

• Successfully defending Specsavers Optical Group in relation to a £600,000 claim.
• Acting for and against a variety of investment banks, hedge funds, private equity houses and other City companies in relation to a number of multi-million pound whistleblowing claims.

TUPE:

• A case finally providing the answer to whether and in what circumstances TUPE will render compromise agreements unenforceable (Solectron v Roper [2004] IRLR 4)
• Successfully arguing on behalf of UCL that the Podiatry Education programme had been transferred to UEL.
• Advising Williams Lea prior to transfer and then successfully defending the multiple TUPE claims arising from the award of a major print procurement contract
• Contentious and non-contentious advice and representation in relation to every form of TUPE-related problem under TUPE 1981 and TUPE 2006.

Discrimination and Equal Pay:

• Acting for a law firm in the first substantial ET case seeking to justify a mandatory retirement age for a partnership – Seldon v Clarkson Wright & Jakes (on appeal)
• Acting for the Legal Services Commission in relation to a case concerned the application of the Race Relations Act to the grant of a franchise to a solicitors' firm by the Legal Services Commission focussing on both the definition of “employee” under Part II of the Act and the ambit of “authorisation or qualification” under section 12 of the Act (Legal Services Commission v Patterson [2004] ICR 312, CA and [2003] IRLR 742, EAT).
• Acting for the Law Society in its defence of further race and sex discrimination claims brought by Dr Kamlesh Bahl.
• Appearing in the EAT in a decision in relation to the ambit of the exclusions of particular forms of behaviour from the Disability Discrimination Act (Edmund Nuttall Limited v Butterfield [2006] ICR 77)
• Particular experience and expertise acting for Claimants in very high value discrimination claims against City banks and other institutions.
• Substantial experience acting for and against law firms and other professional partnerships in relation to such claims

Other:

• Successfully represented the Manager of Fulham FC in relation to proceedings brought by the Club raising issues of gross misconduct and breach of fiduciary duty (Fulham FC v Tigana [2005] EWCA Civ 895 and [2004] EWHC 2585)
• Successfully represented the Respondent in a case concerning the test for determining the employment tribunal's extra-territorial jurisdiction under the Employment Rights Act 1996 was whether the employment was in Great Britain Sysdeco v Atkins [2004] ICR 1733
• Represented the successful respondent in a case concerning the ascertainment of the effective date of termination in relation to an uncommunicated constructive dismissal (Potter v RJ Temple plc, The Times, February 11 2004).

Involved with commercial and contractual disputes in a wide range of fields including directors’ duties, civil fraud, partnership, factoring and invoice discounting and insurance. Experience of directors' disqualification actions, section 459 petitions and insolvency proceedings.

Tom has particular expertise in the following areas:

Director’s duties:

Represented the Defendant in one of the leading cases on breach of fiduciary duties by a departing director (CMS Dolphin v Simonet [2001] 2 BCLC 704).

Acted in a large number of cases in which the claimant is a director and shareholder, thereby raising issues of contract, fiduciary duties, Companies Act obligations, unfair prejudice petitions and director’s disqualification.

Fraud:

Tom has acted on behalf of many of the leading factors and invoice-discounters and also many other banks, financial institutions and companies in relation to fraud and indemnity claims. These claims have involved numerous successful applications for Freezing Orders and other related interlocutory relief.

Substantial experience through court and advisory work in relation to all forms of injunctions commonly granted by domestic courts including Search Orders, Freezing Orders, Doorstep Disclosure Orders, ne exeat regno and interim specific performance of contracts.

Acted for a corporate defendant accused of knowingly assisting in a fraud perpetrated by an employee Maersk Air v Expeditors [2003] 1 Lloyds Reports 491 which also required the consideration of the change of position defence in restitution.

Negligent Reference claims:

Cases include defending a series of multi-million pound commission and negligent reference claims on behalf of the Guardian Assurance Group.

Commercial work in the FSA-Regulated Sector:

Tom has particular experience undertaking commercial work in the context of the FSA-Regulated sector, combining his experience and knowledge of the role of the FSA with general commercial, fraud and fiduciary duty experience.

His experience in dealing with hedge funds (marketing, investment, redemption and valuation issues for long/short, long-only, fof, credit and quant funds), private equity houses (partnership issues, carried interest disputes) and investment and private banks (all forms of employment and remuneration disputes) is particularly significant.

General Commercial:

Tom has acted for a number of musicians including the recent defence of a claim brought against Van Morrison arising out of the cancellation of a performance (Gary Marlow v Exile Productions [2003] EWHC 2631)

Tom's experience in relation to professional negligence encompasses solicitors, accountants, surveyors, quantity surveyors and teachers. Interesting cases include Christmas v Hampshire [1996] 2 AC 633, HL concerning local authority duties of care, and Brayshaw v Durham County Council, concerning the existence of a duty of care to children in care in relation to pure economic loss.

Other tort cases include Blue Circle v MoD [1999] 2 WLR 295, CA which dealt with, among other things, the availability of damages for stigma, and for consequential economic loss.

Acted for SIB and SFA (as they then were) in relation to disciplinary cases. The work for SFA included drafting and advisory work, negotiations of settlements, appearances before the SFA disciplinary tribunal (as it then was) and the making of presentations to SFA's Enforcement Committee.

Tom has acted for Guardian Royal Exchange in relation to a number of substantial commission and negligent reference claims, all of which have involved issues relating to the proper construction of the Financial Services legislation and the regulatory rules thereunder.

General advisory work has included such matters as advising non-EU companies as to the investment advertisement rules in the UK.

Significant experience in relation to hedge fund-related disputes including professional negligence claims against the managers arising out of failures to act in accordance with risk control procedures.