Michael Mcparland
Work Department
Commercial and civil litigation and arbitration.
Position
Barrister (admitted in England and Wales and the British Virgin Islands) and a California attorney. Michael specialises in commercial and civil litigation and arbitration, particularly cases involving international elements. These cases range from shipping, carriage and sale of goods and commodities, international tort claims and injuries on land, sea and in the air, sports law, civil fraud, company and shareholder disputes, to insolvency, insurance and banking. Michael appears in the BVI courts and as appeared in Gibraltar (both in the Court of Appeal and before the Supreme Court) as well as before the Gibralter Financial Services Commission. Michael has appeared in some of the leading conflict of laws cases of the last 20 years. These include: Harding v Wealands [2007] 2 AC 1 (House of Lords; choice of law in internationsal torts); Catlin Syndicate Ltd v Adams Land and Cattle Co [2007] Lloyds IR 96 (jurisdiction/anti-suit injunctions); AMICO v Cellstar Corp [2003] Lloyd's Rep IR 295 (CA, choice of law in insurance contracts, referred to ECJ). Other recent examples include: The Athena [2011] EWHC 589 (Admlty) [2011] 1 CLC 425 (whether a salvage contract for services off the coast of Chile was subject to a BIMCO form with London arbitration); DSG International Sourcing Ltd v Universal Media Corp (Slovakia) SRO [2011] ILPr 33 (jurisdiction in international sale of goods); Moore v Hotelplan Ltd (t/a Ingham Travel) [2010] EWHC 276 (QB), (international injuries, ski doo accident in Italy); Newcastle International Airport v Parkin & Friis (2008) (acting for a Danish defendant in a claim by an airport to recover multi-million bonuses paid to directors in alleged breach of fiduciary duty); Knowlden v Simin Nafis Tehrani [2008] EWHC 54 (Ch) (claimant defrauded fraud out of several valuable properties and other assets, by individual defendent using an offshore trust as a vehicle and fraudulent multiple declarations of trust). In the British Virgin Islands, Michael has acted and advised in a number of cases governed by BVI Company and Insolvency Law, where his knowledge of comparative international company law has proved particularly beneficial for clients. Examples of BVI court hearings include the proper valuation of minority shareholdings under Part IX of the BVI Business Companies Act 2004 (HRH Prince Faisal Bin Khalid Bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud v PIA Investments Ltd (2011)); the proper role of the court in relation to a share valuation under a compromise agreement: Lonrho Africa (Holdings) Limited v Norse Air (2010); the operation of Part V of the BVI Insolvency Act 2003 in relation to the discretionary powers to set aside statutory demands served on corporations share valuations disputes: Prontinal Limited v Elixir Petroleum (UK) Limited (2008); unfair prejudice proceedings and winding up applications: Lonrho Africa (Holdings) Limited v Norse Air (2008). Michael also acts as an expert in English and European law in the USA. In recent years he has given expert evidence in the United States proceedings in the US District Court for the Central District of California concering English ship mortgages and the arrest of a super yacht (Capital Bank PLC v The M/Y Birgitta (2010)), in Florida State Courts concerning a $400 million claim relating to the attempted enforcement of a Nigerian judgment which had been rejected as unenforceable in England, and in Illinois in claims against Boeing in relation to the crash of BA 038 at Heathrow: Stafford et al v The Boeing Corp (2010), and to areotoxic poisoning on a flight from the UK to Florida: Sabatino v The Boeing Corp, (2010). Michael is a member of the Institute of Chartered Arbitrators and accepts instructions as an arbitrator.
Practice Areas
International commercial arbitration; Litigation - commercial; Shipping - marine
Elements of Civil Fraud
The elements or actions that are common to most legal definitions of fraud are:
There was a material representation made that was false;
The person who made the representation knew the representation was false or made it recklessly as a positive assertion without any knowledge of its truth;
The person who made the representation intended to induce another to act upon the representation; and
The person to whom the material representation was made actually and justifiably relied on the representation, which caused the injury. See Ernst & Young, L.L.P. v. Pac. Mut. Life Ins. Co., 51 S.W.3d 573, 577 (Tex. 2001)
