Simon Davenport KC

Simon is a highly regarded senior commercial silk, valued by clients across a number of jurisdictions for his tenacious advocacy and commercial approach, building strong relationships with legal teams and lay clients to ensure great results for his clients. This is demonstrated by by his nomination by Legal 500 for Commercial Litigation Silk of the Year at the 2005 Bar Awards.

He regulary acts in the Commercial Court, Chancery Division, Court of Appeal (having appeared twice in the last 12 months), alongside the DIFC Courts and Caribbean Court of Justice. Furthermore Simon appears in both domestic and international arbitration forums, alongside appeals to the Commercial Court.

Much of Simon;’s commercial and fraud practice involves an insolvency angle so is well positioned to lead on such cases. He represents most of the leading insolvency practitioners in all forms of insolvency actions as well as appearing for directors and individuals. He has far-reaching experience of both trials and interlocutory work with frequent applications relating to freezing and search orders and all forms of interlocutory relief.

Featured Commercial cases

Salinas and another V Astor Asset Management and Others [2025] EWCA Civ 1060: leading Daniel Khoo in the Commercial Court and Court of Appeal in relation to stock based lending, with allegations of dishonesty in relation to hundreds of millinos of collateral shares

Simon undertakes a significant amount of work involving the Middle East. He is currently leading Luke Wygas in Orlen Trading Switzerland GMBH v Hannon International Middle East DMCC, a case in the DIFC Courts relating to a UAE-based company that is subject to a multi hundred million DIFC courts freezing order.

In Eronat v CNPC International (Chad) Ltd & Anr [2024] EWHC 2880 (Comm) acted in an appeal under section 69 Arbitration Act 1996 appeal (and a section 66 enforcement application)

Ellis Richards & Ors v The State of Trinidad & Tobago [2024] CCJ 2 (OJ) Simon appared before the Carribean Court of Justice , under its originating application jurisdiction considering consumer protection provisions in the revised treaty of Charguaramas. The case has been recognised as the largest and most significant case it has ever considered in its near 25 year history.

Shahraab Ahmad v Ouajjiou [2023] EWHC 2666 (Comm), which involved allegations of fraud and breach of contract by each party against the other (in the commercial court) relating to PPE equipment sales to Spanish regional government authorities and back-to-back loans with a third-party investor.

One Blackfriars Ltd [2021] EWHC 684 (Ch): Acting for the claimant liquidator in a £250m claim against the former administrators of One Blackfriars for, amongst other things, selling the landmark building at an undervalue. The longest virtual hearing to take place in July 2020.

IV fund and related litigation: This involves two cases interrelated to allegations of fraud in investments by Russian parties (the victims) where the UK party is alleged to have been defrauding circa £30 million.

National Trust bank v Yurov: Assistance with pre-trial for one of the three former directors of National Bank Trust, one of Russia’s largest retail banks, against whom claims valued at over US$1 billion are being made in the Commercial Court as a result of the allegedly dishonest management of the bank. The claim was heard at a nine-week trial in late 2018 and was listed as one of The Lawyer’s Top 20 Cases of 2017/18. $1.4 billion fraud.

Gorbachev v Guryev: These involved two large fraud investigation cases of a value of over $1.5bn.

Confidential: Concerns of fraud within a company that has been heavily invested in (for the largest non-founder shareholder). An extensive forensic exercise and Shareholder pressure.

BACOL v T&T: This is an ongoing case under the CARICOM treaty before the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) and are claims of discriminatory payments out of investments/policies in the English-speaking Caribbean, arising out of the collapse then bailout of CLICO insurance and investment company.

CLICO v T&T: Challenge to the emergency powers used by the Trinidad government and the central bank of Trinidad and Tobago in relation to the nationalisation of CLICO. Commercial Judicial review and action to restore in effect the privatisation of a nationalised company.