James is experienced in providing expert witness, shadow expert and forensic accounting services to solicitors, counsel, corporate clients, regulators and law enforcement agencies and has provided evidence in Family Court, High Court, Crown Court and alternative dispute resolution proceedings.

James joined Milsted Langdon in June 2023 and specialises in matrimonial financial remedy proceedings, commercial litigation, business valuation, loss quantification, financial investigations and financial redress schemes, including the quantification of loss of earnings claims arising from the Post Office Horizon scandal.

Prior to joining Milsted Langdon, James worked in the forensic accounting team of loss adjusters, Charles Taylor, where he specialised in the quantification of business interruption and loss of profit insurance claims, including those arising from cyber incidents, property damage and other commercial disputes.

Before returning to forensic accountancy practice, James spent five years at the Financial Conduct Authority, where he project-managed criminal and regulatory investigations into insider dealing, market manipulation, misleading statements, delayed disclosure and other market abuse offences as part of the Wholesale Financial Markets Enforcement Division.

James trained as a Chartered Certified Accountant within the forensic accounting department of Crowe UK, where he gained experience in business valuation, commercial litigation and complex financial investigations, including a multi-billion-dollar Russian civil litigation.  During this period he was seconded to the Serious Fraud Office and was a key member of the LIBOR and EURIBOR benchmark manipulation investigations from their inception, through three major criminal trials and ultimately to the successful convictions of eight individuals.

James regularly attends technical conferences and lectures to the legal profession on a range of forensic accounting, valuation and quantum issues.  He has written on forensic accounting matters and his articles have been published in the Financial Remedies Journal.

James has particular expertise in the following matters:

• Expert witness and advisory work in matrimonial financial remedy proceedings.
• Business, shareholding and partnership valuations.
• Shareholder disputes and High Court commercial litigation.
• Asset tracing, financial investigations and forensic accounting.
• Business interruption, loss of profit and loss of earnings claims.
• Valuation of management incentive arrangements, share options and carried interest.
• Financial redress and compensation schemes.
• Fraud, financial crime and regulatory investigations.
• Financial modelling, data analytics and complex spreadsheet-based analysis.

His experience spans numerous large and complex cases, including:

• Appointed as a Single Joint Expert in matrimonial financial remedy proceedings to provide independent expert opinion on the valuation of privately owned businesses, company shareholdings and partnership interests, together with the assessment of liquidity, sustainable income, capital extraction strategies and the tax consequences arising on sale, transfer or restructuring including:
  • A property investment company in the South-West with an investment portfolio of £18 million, including analysis of share valuation provisions contained within bespoke Articles of Association.
  • A specialist shopfitting and manufacturing contractor in the North-West with a turnover of £1.7 million, including discounted cash flow modelling, assessment of acquired customer relationships and quantification of post-separation business growth.
  • A family farming partnership in the North-West with assets of £1.25 million, including assessment of agricultural land, buildings, machinery, latent tax liabilities and partnership capital interests.
  • A regional drinks wholesaler in the South-West with a turnover of £3 million, including assessment of intercompany trading arrangements and group synergies.
  • An unincorporated accountancy practice in London, including the marketability of a specialist client base.
• Appointed to value management incentive arrangements and equity-based remuneration structures, including share options, carried interest, growth shares and Restricted Stock Units (“RSUs”), using Black-Scholes-Merton, binomial lattice and other option-pricing methodologies where appropriate.
• Acting as a shadow expert, providing independent forensic accounting, valuation and taxation advice throughout the lifecycle of a case.
• Forensic investigation and expert reporting in a High Court s994 unfair prejudice petition involving a property investment group with a portfolio of £35 million, including analysis of unequally distributed dividends, directors’ loans, intercompany funding, related-party transactions and accounting governance issues.
• Expert review of systems and controls at the world’s largest precious metals refinery and smelter as part of an insurance claim for large quantities of missing gold and silver.
• Asset-tracing and forensic analysis in a London-based litigation during the so-called ‘aluminium wars’ – a battle for control over the former Russian state-owned industry.
• Calculation of loss of profits arising from a ransomware cyber-attack affecting a top-20 global brewer.
• Key member of the Serious Fraud Office team investigating and prosecuting LIBOR and EURIBOR benchmark manipulation, one of the largest and highest-profile financial crime investigations undertaken in the UK.
• Forensic investigation in a disputed probate matter, including analysis of approximately 9,000 banking transactions, identification of unusual expenditure patterns, and tracing of transfers exceeding £450,000 to family members.
• Lead Investigator in a high-profile criminal insider-dealing investigation at the Financial Conduct Authority that led to the successful prosecutions of two individuals.