Alexander Goold

Alexander has a Chancery/Commercial practice concerning partnerships/joint ventures, minority shareholders, intellectual and real property, breach of contract, guarantees, and insolvency, all in the commercial context.

He specialises in international commercial arbitration. He has good experience of construction disputes and some experience of insurance coverage disputes. He also has extensive experience of business format franchising.

He gives clear, commercial and pragmatic advice.

He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and an accredited mediator. He accepts instructions on direct access in appropriate circumstances.

Recent instructions

Resisting, on behalf of the director of a two-director/shareholder company and of its largest creditor, an application made by an alleged creditor at the behest of the other director for the company’s administration. Issues include whether the application has been made to derail unfair prejudice proceedings pending between them
Unfair prejudice proceedings between property developers as a result of a proposed sale of the company’s principal asset, a development property, to a third party, about which the company is deadlocked, as well as collective enfranchisement now being sought by the leaseholders.
Advising the employer as to the terms of its proposed contract for works with its main contractor, made on a modified FIDIC form, for the US$11m refurbishment of a hotel in Antigua.
An application by the Joint Administrators of a UK-based service company for a crypto-currency exchange seized by the FBI, to vary a worldwide freezing order and be allowed sell 26kg of gold bullion; cross-application by US Trustee in bankruptcy of a convicted fraudster asserting beneficial ownership of the gold.
Defence on behalf of one of the principal defendants, a non-executive, director, to a multi-million US$ claim brought by a US-based investment fund against each of the directors personally, arising out of a share-sale/fundraising agreement and its subsequent variations, made as a means of investing in an AIM-listed fin-tech company looking to offer banking services similar to Monzo or Revolut for developing countries.
Advising an insurer who had sold its book of business and was looking to enter run-off, as to its commission obligations as insurance provider for the members of one of the major Trades Unions.
The trial of a claim by a beneficiary for an account of a trust against the trustee solicitor, concerning his dealings with 4 investment properties and a further residential property, over a period of more than 10 years and the solicitor’s alleged failure to account for substantial funds received by him, whether by way of rental income or on the re-mortgage and transfer out of the trust of the 4 investment properties. The claim had potentially serious repercussions for the solicitor, potentially involving further allegations of deliberate dishonesty/dishonest breach of trust and, potentially, the involvement of the SRA.
Acting for the purchaser of the book of business of a service provider of Small Self-Administered Pension Schemes and its related professional trustee company, in a claim against the seller and its Chief Executive for breach of warranty, fraudulent misrepresentation and unlawful means conspiracy. Lead by Ian Clarke KC.
Drafting and settlement at Mediation of claims on behalf of a substantial heating, plumbing and electrical installation, maintenance and repair company against one of its principal suppliers, that supplier’s Managing Director and the company’s own Operations Manager, for a sustained unlawful means conspiracy over a period of 10 years for the sham supply and invoicing of substantial quantities of copper piping and other plumbing supplies.
Advising the Dutch owners (and others) of a newly-built, ‘first-of-its-kind’ all electric, carbon neutral, pleasure cruiser, intended for use on the River Thames, in the London hospitality/entertainment market, in their dispute with the English leisure operator to whom the vessel had been licensed, as to the ‘force majeure’ provisions of their collaboration agreement, a result of extensive delays in its certification for use by the Port of London Authority and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.
The trial of a claim concerning the enforceability of guarantees given by the directors of a construction company to an online, peer-to peer, crowdfunding platform. Issues included the signing and authenticity of the directors’ signatures and their office administrator’s authority to sign as their agent, as well as the lender’s ability to claim as agent on behalf of its disclosed but unknown principals, the investors who had provided funding to the platform, as well as its ability to assign or novate some of those claims.
Advising the owner of a UK-based supply company and drafting extensive amendments to a long-term contract (originally governed by Washington State law but agreed to be subject to English law), for the ‘earn in’ by a very substantial internet-based sales, logistics and web-hosting business to the right to share ownership of the company, one of its key suppliers.

Arbitration

Alexander has extensive experience of both domestic and international commercial arbitration, including ICC and LCIA arbitration. He has a number of reported cased in the Commercial Court concerning challenges to jurisdiction and setting aside for serious irregularity. In 2005, he obtained the CIArb’s diploma in international Commercial Arbitration following its prestigious Keble College residential course and he has been a Fellow of the CIArb since 2012.

Alexander is on the LCIA’s panel of arbitrators and is currently appointed as sole arbitrator in an LCIA arbitration.

Examples of his work in this area include:

A dispute concerning the sale of a telecoms business.
A series of disputes, lasting more than 12 years, arising out of binding Heads of Terms, intended to form the basis of a long-term trading relationship between the parties and concerning the grant of intellectual property rights to exploit, in defined territories world-wide patents for large-scale 3D holograms, used in music concerts, fashion shows, product launches and party political broadcasts.
A dispute between the founder and managing partner of a London-based firm of solicitors and his former firm, by then merged with a Spanish law firm, following his departure to set up a new litigation boutique.
A dispute between franchisor and former franchisee in the care sector.

Recent cases include:

Ganz v Petronz FZE & Another [2024] EWHC 635 (Comm)
Ganz v Petronz FZE [2024] EWHC 1011 (Comm)
NWA & Another v NVF & Others [2021] EWHC 2666 (Comm)
Maass v Musion Events Ltd., O’Connell & Rock [2015] EWHC 1346 (Comm)

Notable Cases

Ganz v Petronz FZE & Another [2024] EWHC 635 (Comm);

An Arbitration Claim in the Commercial Court to challenge a sole arbitrator’s award on substantive jurisdiction made in an LCIA arbitration. The underlying claim, worth around £4-5m, was one between Israeli businessmen and a Dubai Free Zone Corporation to sell shares in a Cyprus-registered company, itself the holder of shares in Indian companies owning development land in Tamil Nadu. After a 4-day evidentiary hearing, the arbitrator had concluded there had been no binding agreement reached, whether as to the sale or arbitration as the parties’ chosen method of dispute resolution. There was significant delay in progressing the claim as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and because service out of the jurisdiction on Petronz FZE proved impossible, with that corporation being thought never to have existed. Successfully prevented the striking out of the claim on those grounds in an application made on the documents under the Commercial Court’s ‘on the papers’ procedure for such relief. In the court’s first judgment, the court was willing to conduct the re-hearing of the underlying case ‘on the papers’, without re-hearing the parties’ oral evidence. Taking such an approach anticipated the changes to challenges to awards on substantive jurisdiction introduced by the Arbitration Act 2025.

Ganz v Petronz FZE [2024] EWHC 1011 (Comm)

In the court’s second and separate judgement, the court agreed both to publish and not to anonymise its first judgment, despite strenuous objections to that course. In doing so, the court gave helpful guidance as to the factors to be considered regarding the publication/anonymisation of judgments in Arbitration Claims, given that the choice of arbitration involves the choice of a private method of dispute resolution.

Okunola v Barca [2023] 7WLUK 433

Successful defence of High Court appeal by claimant against summary judgment given for the defendants. The claim was one made by the brother (himself a twice-convicted murderer/attempted murderer and struck-off solicitor) of a solicitor’s former client, on grounds of an alleged fraudulent conspiracy involving a loan to the former client, his sister, and the giving of a charge by her over her property. This was said to have been done deliberately, in order to deny the brother any recovery from litigation he had been pursuing against his sister, which later resulted in a judgment in his favour against her. The solicitor had previously been investigated by the SRA and disciplined by the SDT for making the loan and for making an inaccurate statement in a witness statement that he had made in the course of applying, on the sister’s behalf, to set aside the brother’s judgment. The claim involved allegations of deliberate dishonesty by the solicitor and his firm.

Nambiar v Karam [2023] EWHC 839 (Ch)

Enforcement of a judgment obtained in Miami Dade County, Florida, USA, against real property in London and whether the English court would recognise and enforce the Florida court’s judgment given ‘in rem’ for the transfer of ownership of real property outside the foreign court’s territory -a flat in Westminster. Further issues concerned whether the £1,5m monetary elements of the foreign judgment were unenforceable as amounting to a criminal or quasi-criminal penalty, whether there were conflicting judgments as between the court in Florida and a judgment from the Court of Appeal in Lebanon, if so, whether the English court should uphold the first in time or last in time of those conflicting judgments; whether the claimant ex-wife should be allowed to resile from a concession made during the course of her application that the proceedings were limited to pursuing the property transfer element of her claim; and, whether there had been a conspiracy between the defendant ex-husband and his mother to deprive the ex-wife of the benefit of the Florida judgment.

Addison v London European Securities Ltd [2022] EWHC 1077 (Ch)

Whether a bankrupt retained, post-bankruptcy, the personal right, outside the scope of his estate in bankruptcy, to maintain his appeal against the court’s refusal to set aside the statutory demand that lead to his bankruptcy. The court reached a number of important conclusions about the approach to be taken and relevant matters to consider in order to determine whether a particular right, including a person’s right to appeal such a refusal, was something that came within the very wide definition of a person’s ‘estate in bankruptcy’ (and vested in the trustee in bankruptcy), or, exceptionally, was something ‘personal’ to him, and thus gave him standing to bring and maintain proceedings (including an appeal) notwithstanding his bankruptcy.

NWA & Another v NVF & Others [2021] EWHC 2666 (Comm)

An Arbitration Claim in the Commercial Court to challenge an arbitrator’s award that an obligation first to refer a dispute to mediation under the LCIA’s Mediation Procedure before then referring it to LCIA arbitration, was not something that affected his substantive jurisdiction to determine the parties’ dispute, if it was not complied with. The court concluded that the requirement for mediation was procedural only, going to admissibility of the claim. It did not come within the ambit of ‘substantive jurisdiction’ and the court’s supervisory power was not engaged. It is one of only two decisions in English law where the courts have had to address the distinction between a matter affecting mere admissibility of a claim before an arbitral tribunal and a matter affecting its substantive jurisdiction to determine a claim at all and establishes with some certainty and force that compliance with pre-arbitral conditions is something that will, generally, not deprive an arbitral tribunal of the power to hear the claim but will it a discretion about what to do to address the non-compliance.

NIHL Limited & London Property Asia Limited v Infinite Limited (In Liquidation) & Others [2020] EWHC 3136 (Comm)

A claim by two BVI companies, investment vehicles for a wealthy Hong Kong Chinese family office, to enforce the terms of a Tomlin Order agreed at trial two years earlier, which had settled proceedings brought by them in the Commercial Court to recover from the guarantors, Israeli/Russian husband and wife property developers, who specialised in luxury properties, loans made to their companies. The companies sought to enforce a ‘long-stop’ entitlement to enter judgment for £3.3m. The case is only one of a limited number to consider the meaning of ‘reasonable endeavours’ and ‘best endeavours’ as matters of law; it also considered, in construing the terms of the Tomlin Order and whether the companies had been obliged to use ‘reasonable endeavours’, whether the court was able to admit evidence of the parties’ on-going without prejudice negotiations.

Old Street Homes Ltd v Chelsea Bridge Apartments Ltd [2018] EWHC 1162 (Ch)

Chelsea Bridge Apartments Ltd v Old Street Homes Ltd [2017] 9WLUK 12

Al-Baho v BGP Global Services Ltd [2017] EWHC 2494 (Ch)

Maass v Musion Events Ltd., O’Connell & Rock [2015] EWHC 1346 (Comm)

Challenge to an arbitrator’s award on jurisdiction in an LCIA arbitration on grounds of serious irregularity causing substantial injustice.

Mediation CV Arbitration CV