Elizabeth Ovey
Elizabeth is a hugely experienced senior junior, having developed her pensions practice over the past 25 years, and acts for a diverse client base of trustees, employer companies and individual pensioners.
Elizabeth's initial involvement in professional negligence resulted largely from the collapse of the property market at the end of the 1980’s, as a result of which many financial institutions sought to recover their losses through negligence actions against their professional advisers (in particular, their solicitors) and she was instructed to act on behalf of building society and bank clients for that purpose. Her understanding of the conveyancing and mortgage background was particularly useful in this context.
Her professional negligence practice now covers a much wider field. In addition to alleged negligence in conveyancing matters, she has dealt with cases against solicitors involving advice on financial and property transactions, the drafting of documents and the conduct of litigation, itself relating to a wide variety of matters. She has also been involved in claims against other professionals, such as insurance brokers, surveyors, accountants and actuaries.
The banking and financial services aspect of Elizabeth’s practice has grown out of chambers’ long-established connection with building societies, which has always included a substantial drafting and property law element, as well as litigation. In recent years, the increasing extent of regulation of financial services documentation and the developing strategies of the Financial Services Authority, the Office of Fair Trading and the Financial Ombudsman Service have ensured a steady stream of work raising compliance issues.
Elizabeth is joint editor of Wurzburg and Mills on Building Society Law (Sweet and Maxwell) and co-author of Current Law Statutes Annotated Edition of the Building Societies Act 1986. Malcolm Waters QC and she were members of the working party which produced the Standard Conditions of Sale (1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th editions) and the Standard Commercial Property Conditions (1st and 2nd editions). Elizabeth and Malcolm are also contributing editors of The Law of Investor Protection (2nd edition) (Sweet and Maxwell).
Elizabeth acted as co-Consultant with Charles Proctor for the Halsbury's Laws Fifth Edition Financial Services and Institutions title.