Lara Hassell-Hart

Lara has a busy litigation practice spanning a wide range of commercial chancery work, including commercial, financial services and banking, regulatory, civil fraud, insolvency and company litigation. She has substantial experience of large High Court trials and working in small and big counsel and solicitor teams.

Notable cases include: the Lloyds/HBOS shareholder litigation (a 12 week banking trial arising from Lloyds’ acquisition of HBOS in the 2008 banking crisis); Autonomy and Ors v Lynch and Anor liability trial (10 month £5bn civil fraud trial arising from Hewlett Packard’s acquisition of Autonomy); Travelport & Ors v WEX (a 7 day expedited trial in the Commercial Court; the leading English authority on material adverse change clauses); Re Bulb Energy Limited (the UK’s first ever application for an energy supply company special administration order); Croxen & Ors v Gas and Electricity Markets Authority and Ors (a complex 5-day insolvency hearing regarding the ability of OFGEM and other energy supply companies to prove in the insolvencies of other energy companies); Re Spring Media Investments Limited (3 week trial under ss.994-996 of the Companies Act; later an appeal and cross-appeal to the Court of Appeal); Staley v Financial Conduct Authority (a high-profile Upper Tribunal trial of the FCA’s decision to impose a penalty and prohibition order on the ex-CEO of Barclays); Lopez Gonzalez and Ors v Financial Conduct Authority (a complex 3 week market abuse trial in the Upper Tribunal, arising out of three bond traders’ manipulative trading of Italian futures on the EUREX exchange).

In addition to her private practice, Lara also undertakes work on behalf of the UK Government, having been appointed to C panel in 2022 and B panel in 2025. She regularly advises and appears for other public bodies and regulators, including the Financial Conduct Authority, Financial Reporting Council, and OFGEM.

Lara was one of 19 barristers named in The Lawyer’s ‘Hot 100’ of 2022.

Called 2014 (Middle Temple, Astbury Scholar)

2012: BA History, University of Cambridge (Girton College)

2013: GDL at City University

2014: BPTC at City University

COMBAR, ChBA, FSLA