Evershed enlists Monro Fisher to fight New Star dismissal case

Fund manager Patrick Evershed has instructed West End firm Monro Fisher Wasbrough to launch a constructive dismissal claim against his former employer New Star Asset Management.

Evershed left New Star in September 2008 following a run of poor performance on his Select Opportunities fund. It is understood that Evershed, a prominent Conservative party donor, had previously been good friends with New Star’s founder and chairman John Duffield.

Duffield established New Star in 2001, but when market turbulence led to
sustained under performance in its funds and customers began withdrawing
money its lending banks seized control of the asset management group and delisted it from the London Stock Exchange (LSE) at the end of 2008.

The company is expected to be sold at auction, with Olswang partner Simon
Morgan acting for New Star and Lovells advising the business’s controlling banks HBOS, Lloyds TSB, Royal Bank of Scotland and National Australia Bank.

Olswang’s inclusion is a boon for the firm’s ambitious corporate group. The firm advised on New Star’s entry to the LSE in 2007, as well as its 2005 admission to Aim.

The employment dispute has seen Monro Fisher partner Annabel Clark instruct employment and defamation specialist Daphne Romney of Cloisters Chambers.

New Star in-house counsel Sian Strand has instructed Nicholas Randall of Devereux Chambers. The tribunal is due to be heard in April.

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