Luther Kisanga
Dispute Resolution

Luther Kisanga

Legal Director, Dispute Resolution

Luther is a Legal Director in the Dispute Resolution team at Rosenblatt. He is a Barrister with Higher Rights of Audience and acts for clients involved in disputes, as well as investigations and other regulatory matters.

Luther’s practice is focused on resolving high-value, complex and multi-jurisdictional commercial and regulatory disputes through litigation, arbitration, and all other forms of alternative dispute resolution. Luther has experience of representing companies, directors, liquidators, funds, insurers and high net worth individuals across a wide range of industry sectors. His cases have included claims arising from breach of contract, negligence, civil fraud, debt actions, breach of trust, misrepresentation, unfair prejudice, professional negligence and freezing and disclosure orders.

Professional memberships:

• Member of the Commercial Bar Association
• Member of the Chancery Bar Association
• Member of the Commercial Fraud Lawyers Association
• Member of the Financial Services Lawyers Association
• Associate of the Chartered Institute of Insurance

Recent experience:

  • Acting for the Claimant (in two sets of parallel proceedings) in successful claims for the recovery of money from the Lebanese banking system by way of specific performance of instructions to make international money transfers. In addition to raising multiple issues of Lebanese law, the claims raised complex questions of English law, such as the choice of law governing the rate of interest applicable under Rome I regulation. Each claim culminated in a two-week trial in King’s Bench Division of the High Court Bitar v Banque Libano-Française SAL [2023] EWHC 17 (KB); and Bitar v Bank of Beirut SAL [2022] EWHC 2163 (QB) (trial) and [2022] EWHC 2930 (KB) (consequentials)).
  • Acting for a Respondent (ED&F Man Capital Markets Limited) in the successful resistance of a high-profile appeal (one of The Lawyer’s “Top 10 appeals” 2022), brought by a foreign tax authority (SKAT) in the Court of Appeal, where ED&F Man was the only defendant (among circa 100) to defeat SKAT’s appeal (Skatteforvaltningen (the Danish Customs And Tax Divisions) v Solo Capital Partners LLP and Others [2022] EWCA Civ 234).
  • Acting for the founders and senior management of Corbin & King, who operate London restaurants including The Wolseley, The Delaunay and Brasserie Zédel, in the successful and widely reported opposition of a High Court challenge brought by the majority shareholder of the group to try and prevent them repaying senior debt (MI Squared Limited v Jeremy King and Others [2022] EWHC 331 (Comm)).
  • Acting for an institutional investor in a widely reported successful opposition of a proposed Part 26A restructuring plan for an AIM listed, oil exploration and production company (Re Hurricane Energy Plc [2021] EWHC 1759 (Ch)).
  • Acting for a Defendant (part of a global financial brokerage business) in the successful defence of a c. £1.5bn claim brought by a foreign tax authority in the Commercial Court, involving complex litigation in multiple jurisdictions (Skatteforvaltningen (the Danish Customs And Tax Administration) v Solo Capital Partners LLP and Others [2021] EWHC 974 (Comm)), where the defendants were also awarded their costs of the claims on an indemnity basis (Skatteforvaltningen (the Danish Customs And Tax Administration) v Solo Capital Partners LLP and Others [2021] EWHC 1222 (Comm)), one of The Lawyer’s “Top 20 cases” 2021.
  • Acting for 10 liquidated companies and their liquidators in an action against RBS plc (now NatWest Markets Plc) and Mercuria Energy Europe Trading Ltd for dishonest assistance and for knowing participation in fraudulent trading in relation to a large-scale missing trader VAT fraud in the carbon credit market (the total value of the pleaded claim for dishonest assistance was over £83 million, which was alleged to be the amount of the liquidated companies’ unpaid VAT liabilities to HMRC), subject of a 6-week trial in June/July 2018 (Bilta (UK) Limited (in liquidation) and Others v Natwest Markets Plc and Mercuria Energy Europe Trading Limited [2020] EWHC 546 (Ch)) and a 5-day appeal in March 2021 (NatWest Markets Plc and Mercuria Energy Europe Trading Limited v Bilta (UK) Limited (in Liquidation) and Others [2021] EWCA Civ 680).
  • Acting for a household name Plc in a successful action, where the Commercial Court found that its former CEO had been validly removed from the Board and dismissed as an employee of the Company in June 2018, in a judgment which considered the responsibilities of directors in their interactions with the board and with shareholders (Stobart Group Limited v William Andrew Tinkler [2019] EWHC 258 (Comm)).
  • Acting for the five lead case LLPs in an appeal to the Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber) concerning the commercial analysis and tax treatment of payments made by “Icebreaker” LLPs involved in the creative industries where the amount at stake was c. £350m (Acornwood LLP and Others v HMRC [2016] UKUT 0361 (TCC)).

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