Giselle McGowan

Giselle is regularly instructed by office-holders, directors, creditors and/or debtors in personal and corporate insolvency matters including:

• Misfeasance, breach of duty, wrongful trading and fraudulent trading claims and applications to set aside antecedent transactions.
• Disputed bankruptcy and winding-up petitions.
• Applications to restrain presentation or advertisement of winding-up petitions.
• Administration applications.
• Proceedings relating to bankruptcy such as applications to set aside statutory demands, to suspend discharge, for sale of property and annulment applications.
• Personal and private examinations.
• Proprietary claims.
• Freezing order applications.

Giselle is also regularly instructed on company and partnership matters including partnership disputes, claims against directors, claims for dissolution and director disqualification proceedings.

Recent work includes:

• Acting as junior counsel (led by Joseph Curl KC) in successfully challenging the IVA of Pramod Mittal (who claimed to have debtors of c.£2.5 billion).
• Obtaining a declaration that assets in the name of a company director’s wife were held on trust for the company.
• Obtaining declarations that directors had misappropriated company monies and/or breached their duties to the company and an order that they compensate the company.
• Obtaining declarations that a liquidator’s appointment was valid and that share purchase agreements prior to her appointment were a sham.
• Successfully opposing an application to appoint joint-administrators as joint-liquidators upon the company moving from administration to liquidation.
• Obtaining freezing orders in connection with multi-million pound labour supply frauds.
• Obtaining winding-up orders on public interest grounds in connection with wine and property investment frauds.

Reported cases:

Moorgate Industries UK Ltd v Mittal [2022] All ER (D) 81
Wagstaff v HMRC [2022] UKUT 00327 (TCC)
Re Sentor Solutions Ltd  [2022] All ER (D) 04 Nov)
JT Development Solutions Ltd v Secretary of State for Education [2022] 2 BCLC 135
Re A C Norton Ltd (in liquidation) [2021] All ER (D) 104
Re Solid Homes Ltd (in liquidation) [2020] All ER (D) 41 (Nov)
Tradestar Ltd v Goldfarb [2018] B.C.C. 173 (upheld on appeal [2018] EWHC 3595 (Ch))
Re Helen Irene Borodzicz [2015] All ER (D) 03 (Dec)

Giselle regularly advises on and acts in property disputes including commercial and residential landlord and tenant matters, enforceability of covenants and easements, adverse possession, relief from forfeiture, leasehold enfranchisement, claims involving rectification of the Land Register, issues arising out of joint ownership of land including TLATA claims and claims involving constructive and resulting trusts and proprietary estoppel and property disputes arising within personal and corporate insolvency matters.

Recent work includes:

• Obtaining an order for alteration of the Land Register to substitute the Applicant trustees in bankruptcy as registered proprietors of property on the basis that the bankrupt’s purported signatures on the contract for sale and TR1 purportedly transferring the property to the Respondent were forgeries and that the bankrupt had been the victim of identity theft and fraud carried out by a third party.
• Defending a claim for misrepresentation and breach of contract involving the sale of a residential properly.
• Resisting an application to set aside an arbitration award concerning a property management quasi-partnership on the grounds of bias.
• Obtaining a vesting order in a leasehold enfranchisement claim where one landlord could not be located and the other opposed the making of the vesting order.
• Successfully representing the co-owner wife in a TLATA claim by an executor of her co-owner husband’s will seeking possession and sale of property where the claim was dismissed in its entirety.

Reported cases:

Dadoun v Biton [2019] EWHC 2441 (Ch)
Coventry v Lawrence [2014] UKSC 46; [2015] A.C. 106

Giselle regularly advises on indirect tax and duties matters and represent taxpayers and HMRC in tribunal appeals.

Recent work includes appeals concerning:

• An appeal to the Upper Tribunal against a Personal Liability Notice (direct tax) concerning the interaction of insolvency law and the law on limitation.
• Missing-trader intra-community fraud.
• Liability to register for insurance premium tax.
• Liability to register for VAT.
• Rejection of a proposed partial-exemption special method.
• Amending the effective date of registration for VAT.
• Whether supplies were single composite or separate supplies.
• Whether sums received were consideration for taxable supplies for VAT purposes or sums collected as agent.
• The classification of services within a property development project for VAT purposes.

Recently Giselle has worked closely with HMRC Solicitor’s Office‘s Northern Ireland Protocol VAT and Duties Advisory team providing advice in relation to the Northern Ireland Protocol regarding customs matters.

Reported cases:

Wagstaff v HMRC [2022] UKUT 327 (TCC)
Maron Plant Limited v HMRC [2022] UKFTT 198
GB Taxi Service Ltd v Revenue and Customs Commissioners [2020] UKFTT 507 (TC)
Moustapha v Revenue and Customs Commissioners [2019] UKFTT 563 (TC)
Michalska v Revenue and Customs Commissioners [2019] UKFTT 173 (TC)
National Federation of Occupational Pensioners v Revenue and Customs Commissioners [2018] UKFTT 26 (TC); [2018] SFTD 691
Panter v Revenue and Customs Commissioners [2018] UKFTT 589 (TC)

Giselle is ranked as a Leading Junior for Restructuring and Insolvency by Chambers and Partners 2024, with the following comments: “She is tenacious, hard-working and commercially astute.”, “Giselle is a great barrister with a very high level of technical knowledge.”, “Her advocacy is excellent, presenting complex matters in a clear, concise and persuasive manner.”

Giselle is ranked in the Legal 500, 2024 Edition, as a Leading Junior for Insolvency with the following comments: “Giselle combines a significant intellect with a finely-honed strategic instinct. She is a fearsome and fearless advocate who is always deeply prepared and leaves no stone unturned in pursuing her client’s interests.”

Giselle is ranked as a Leading Junior for Restructuring and Insolvency by Chambers and Partners 2023, with the following comments: “Giselle is a formidable operator who takes a forensic approach to her cases” and “Her knowledge of the law and grasp of how it applies to the relevant factual matrix is highly impressive”.

Giselle is ranked in the Legal 500, 2023 Edition, as a Leading Junior for Insolvency and is described as “A very good lawyer. Clear and concise in her advice”.

Giselle is ranked in the Legal 500, 2021 Edition, as a Leading Junior for Insolvency and is described as a “Good communicator and very robust in court; quickly disseminates thoughts and involves team in discussions.”

• Walkers Snack Foods Limited
• Lawrence and another v. Fen Tigers Limited and others (No 2) [2015] A.C. 106

• Contributing editor, Insolvency Legislation: Annotations & Commentary (Louis Doyle & Professor Andrew Keay (eds)) LexisNexis
• Contributor, Tolley’s Insolvency Law Service (LexisNexis)
• Liability of trustees and the discretion to manage the estate – Borodzicz v Horton, Lexis PSL Restructuring and Insolvency monthly highlights, December 2015 (interviewed by Diana Bentley)
• The Law of Disclaimer, International Corporate Rescue Journal, Volume 11, Issue 4, 2014

• Insolvency Update (Summer 2018)
• Insolvency Seminar - New Authorities, Established Principles 

Education and qualifications

2011 – LLB – The College of Law
2011 – BPTC – The College of Law
2010 – GDL – The College of Law
2007 – BA Politics and Philosophy – University of Sheffield

Prizes and scholarships

Sunley Scholarship, Lincoln’s Inn
Buchanan Prize, Lincoln’s Inn

Memberships

Chancery Bar Association
R3 Association of Business Recovery Professionals
Property Bar Association
The Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn

Giselle McGowan is an independent self-employed barrister registered with the Bar Standards Board of England (ref. no 13413); whose practice is governed by the Code of Conduct of the Bar of England and Wales which code can be found at www.barstandardsboard.org.uk; has full professional liability insurance provided by the Bar Mutual Indemnity Fund Limited (ref BM 2930/069) (details of the world-wide cover are provided at www.barmutual.co.uk); is registered for VAT (reg. no. 168 754 953 ); and can be contacted during chambers opening hours by telephone at 02074045055 or by e-mail at clerks@9stonebuildings.com.