Tim Crockford

Tim is a Commercial and Regulatory Disputes Partner working on a wide range of complex contractual and tortious disputes (often with an international element) and regulatory investigations. He has particular experience acting for the major accountancy firms on disputes across their services lines including assurance, tax and consulting disputes. He is well known for his considerable experience advising audit firms and partners in relation to complex regulatory investigations by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Institute for Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) as well as assisting firms with requests by other regulators (including the SFO, NCA and PCAOB). He has acted on some of the largest FRC investigations of recent years (often following major corporate collapses and/or resulting from the detection of fraud) including on the four year investigation into the audits of Carillion PLC and having acted in the high profile 2022 FRC Tribunal Hearing into the allegations of misconduct against audit team members (The Lawyer’s Top 20 cases 2022).

Tim maintains busy general commercial litigation and art and cultural property practices having acted for one of the major auction houses for a number of years. He has extensive experience of high value negligence claims; title disputes; and attribution claims. He often works on such disputes with colleagues in New York, Paris, Dubai and Hong Kong and is a member of the Professional Advisors to the International Art Market (PAIAM) and Art Lawyers Association.

Tim's clients value his ownership mentality together with his ability to share the weight of their issues with them, address them appropriately and then identifying solutions and outlining a clear roadmap to achieving the desired outcome. Tim is used to putting himself in his clients' shoes - having gained important commercial experience as an in-house lawyer on two successful secondments to major international corporates helping him to understand the realities of commercial business pressures and priorities.

Experience

• Assisting and advising a number of major accountancy firms and audit partners in relation to regulatory investigations brought by Financial Reporting Council often arising out of corporate collapses and/or detection of fraud.

• Acting for one of the Big Four accountancy firms on the defence of a large multi-million pound audit negligence claim arising out of the Icelandic banking collapse.

• Acting for a leading professional services firm and successfully obtaining summary dismissal of a large multi-million pound claim against IPs and later defeating an appeal in a two day Court of Appeal hearing.

• Successfully defending at trial one of the world's pre-eminent auction houses in relation to allegations of professional negligence and breach of contract.

• Advising a large international accounting network in relation to the exit of a member firm.

• Advising in relation to a multi-million pound professional negligence claim by a large pension fund against its former actuaries.

• Acting on a £300million professional negligence claim brought by Philips Electronics' Pension Fund against its former investment advisor and manager in the Chancery Division.