Michael Oatham, Partner and Head of Commercial Litigation

Profile:

Michael is a Partner and Head of our Commercial Litigation team.

He has more than 20 years’ legal experience and joined Brachers in 1998, after starting his career in banking and asset finance in the City. He has been a Partner since 2004.

Michael is ranked in the Chambers UK 2022 legal directory for Litigation in the South of England. He was named as a ‘Recommended Lawyer’ in the Legal 500 2022 directory.

He is part of the Collections and Recoveries team which won a Credit Excellence Award 2020 for its debt recovery work.

Michael specialises in:
- Commercial contract disputes
- Corporate risk analysis and advice
- Shareholders’ rights and remedies
- Partnership and LLP disputes
- Corporate insolvency and asset recovery
- Intellectual property disputes
- Defamation
- Alternative dispute resolution
- Supporting NHS Trusts and local authorities.
Renowned for his tenacity, Michael is highly regarded for keeping his clients’ wider objectives in mind; a culture which is embraced throughout his team.

Michael is based in our Maidstone office.
Practice and Sector Focus:
Qualifications and Memberships:
- Kent Law Society
Recent Cases:
- Acting for a client during 2020-21 who is claiming against its design and build contractor and its planning consultants for mistakes made in the development of a warehousing and distribution centre.
- Defending a lift manufacturer, whose lifts in a mixed development had failed. We established that the cause was, in fact, defective works by the main contractor resulting in structural movement within the building, which in turn affected the lift shafts. The case settled in 2020 with no liability to our client.
- Advising a pharmaceutical company on the termination of a development license issued to another company following their failure to meet the terms of the agreement.
Awards:
- He handles a wide range of commercial disputes as well as insolvency litigation. A source describes him as “always on the ball” and adds: “He knows his stuff, knows the law and is good to deal with”.
  
  Chambers & Partners
- I wanted to thank you personally for everything. Both professionally and personally I honestly don’t know how we would have got through this without you and Brachers, my words of thanks won’t really cover the gratitude my wife and I have for you.
  
  Client quote
- Measured and reasonable.
  
  Client quote
- Fantastic at dealing with difficult situations and thinking creatively.
  
  Chambers & Partners