Introducing our new forensic team

October 2016 saw the arrival of our new forensic team which has vast experience of assisting parties with, and adding value to, a wide range of disputes, investigations and litigation-related matters. 

The team is headed by partner Matthew Geale, who specialises in a wide range of forensic matters, including commercial litigation, shareholder disputes, personal injury and intellectual property disputes, such as infringement of trademarks. 

Matthew is assisted by Chris Hine who was national head of forensic for over 10 years at a top 20 accountancy firm. He specialises in large commercial cases, post transactional disputes, sport-related disputes, particularly in the football sector, and construction litigation.

Matthew is also assisted by Liesel Annible, a director who originally trained in insolvency and corporate recovery including a secondment to the Insolvency Service division of the DTI where she spent 18 months prosecuting and disqualifying delinquent directors. Liesel is therefore regularly instructed to act as an expert witness in cases where she is asked to opine on the solvency of companies and the behaviour of the directors in relation to their failure. 

She has also assisted insolvency practitioners in bringing claims against directors and third parties for the recovery of assets in insolvency situations as well as defending cases of alleged negligence against insolvency practitioners.

Liesel also specialises in prosecuting and defending serious organised crime and investigating financial crime involving corporate entities including charities and not for profit organisations and has given oral evidence in court on numerous occasions.

Liesel has recently been instructed to act as an expert witness in cases involving:

• money laundering;
• corporate fraud;
• mortgage fraud;
• counterfeiting;
• breach of solicitors client account rules;
• misappropriation from trusts and estates;
• drug trafficking;
• evasion of duty on cigarettes;
• theft;
• boiler room fraud;
• high level organised benefit fraud; and
• cash seizures.