Profile
Martin Shobbrook has spent his entire legal career focusing on matters related to civil fraud, representing claimants or defendants in substantial cases. His clients include private individuals, companies and trusts and state Governments. For claimants, his experience lies in multi-jurisdictional asset-tracing enquiries often involving Court applications in multiple overseas jurisdictions. His defense work frequently involves high-profile civil proceedings where the defendant is also under investigation by criminal, tax, and other regulatory authorities in the UK or overseas. Noting that fraud does not respect international borders, Martin has considerable experience (drawn from acting for both claimants and defendants) in working with lawyers in several jurisdictions at the same time and is particularly adept at devising and executing strategies across a wide number of jurisdictions at the same time.
Martin has experience of investigating fraud in a wide number of sectors including financial services, metals trading, telecoms, hotel and leisure, metal production, pensions and recruitment.
Martin is very familiar with all areas of the English Court’s injunctive remedies, including freezing orders and search orders (including those directed at non-parties), computer imaging orders, document delivery orders and passport orders. Martin also has considerable experience in acting as the Court appointed “Supervising Solicitor” for the purposes of the execution of search orders and the like.
Martin is currently advising the main defendant in the very high profile Vneshprombank litigation in London where damages against his client of £1.3Bn are sought. That case has seen multiple Court hearings regarding the freezing and search orders that are in place together with 2 appeals to the Court of Appeal and a considerable volume of international press coverage.
Capabilities
Experience
- Acted for a Swiss lawyer who was appointed the executor of an English Estate in defending a claim seeking his removal under section 50 of the Administration of Justice Act 1985 by the sole beneficiary of the estate. The matter included allegations of fraud and theft, and was part of a worldwide series of criminal and civil claims in various territories including the Cayman Islands, BVI, Delaware, Israel, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. Successfully applied for summary judgment on behalf of our client on his counterclaim - Perry v Neupert [2018] EWHC 88 (Ch).°
- Acted for a senior member of the Saudi Royal Family in his successful claim including defending allegations of fraud, money laundering, terrorist financing, and gold smuggling.°
- Acted in the investigation carried out by a substantial state owned Middle Eastern aluminium producer coordinating the international investigation of allegations of fraud and money laundering involving tens of millions of dollars and spread across a number of jurisdictions including Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Luxembourg, The British Virgin Islands, The Bahamas, Jersey, and the Isle of Man.°
- Acted in the investigation of a large-scale development fraud coordinating an international investigation of fraud, corruption, and bribery involving the loss of millions of U.S. $ including coordinating injunctive action in Jamaica, Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, Canada, and Hong Kong.°
- Acted for the government of Sweden in its claims relating to the largest pension fraud ever suffered within that territory.
- Acted for the former Finance Director of the collapsed “Versailles” trade finance house defending claims in excess of £50m.°
- Acted for the former Chief Executive and the former Finance Director of the collapsed metals trader “RBG Resources” defending claims in excess of £350m.°
- Advising individuals in their successful strike out of fraud claims brought by liquidators in excess of £50m.°
- Acted in relation to the House of Commons MP's expenses investigations as well as in the defence of a multimillion US$ claim regarding mineral rights and mines in Africa.°
- Acted for high-profile private equity houses and hedge funds seeking to recover large losses incurred as a result of investments made on the basis of what turned out to be fraudulent information.°
°The above representations were handled by Mr. Shobbrook prior to his joining Greenberg Traurig, LLP.
Recognition & Leadership
- Listed, Who’s Who Legal
- Thought Leader – Asset Recovery, 2023
- Global Leader – Asset Recovery, 2021-2022
- Listed, Legal 500 UK, 2022-2024
Credentials
- LL.B., University of Plymouth
- England and Wales