Bhajan Khalsa joined Bermans in October 2023 and is currently a Trainee Solicitor in the ABL Litigation team in Manchester.
Bhajan deals with contentious and non-contentious matters. The contentious work he is involved in includes bringing/defending claims against directors arising out of insolvencies.
He completed the LPC at Huddersfield University and has previous experience working in asset finance and invoice finance work for a broad range of lenders.
Rachael joined Bermans in May 2023 as a Solicitor in our Asset Based Lending team in Manchester.
Rachael graduated with a First Class Law Degree from Sheffield Hallam University in 2015. Following this, she attended BPP Law School, where she obtained a Distinction in the Legal Practice Course. She then qualified as a Solicitor in 2020.
She is experienced in real estate finance, general corporate finance, invoice finance and asset-based lending.
Outside of work, Rachael enjoys travelling, going on walks in the Lake District and spending time with friends.
Jenny joined Bermans in April 2023 as a paralegal and is currently a Trainee Solicitor in our Asset Based Lending team based in Manchester.
She graduated with a Law Degree in 2021 and the LPC with Business and Management MSc in 2022 at Liverpool University. She also has previous experience in corporate law.
Jenny assists on a range of asset finance, invoice finance, and general corporate finance for lenders and financial houses.
Outside of work, Jenny likes to stay active being a keen runner, skier and gym go-er.
The announcement by the FCA in late July last year of its final decisions on implementing the new Consumer Duty has led to a range of responses within the leasing and consumer credit industries.
The aim of the FCA is said to be to fundamentally improve how regulated firms serve consumers, by setting higher and clearer standards of consumer protection across financial services and explicitly requiring regulated firms to put their customers’ needs first.
Asset financiers have not had much comfort from the sorry tale of the Arena TV fraud, but we did notice with interest a passage in a recent judgment against the main perpetrator individuals behind the fraud which illustrates the principle that in certain circumstances victims of fraud can trace assets such as foreign property which the fraudsters have obtained with the proceeds of the fraud.
On 9 December 2022 HM Treasury published a consultation paper on reform of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 (“CCA”).
The Government announced its intention to reform the CCA in June 2022, with the ambition of moving most of the CCA from statute to FCA rules. Given the scale and complexity of this work, it is expected to take a number of years. The consultation paper is the first step in this process. In it, HM Treasury seeks views on the objectives, principles and overall direction of the proposed reform.
As long ago as 2001 in the landmark case of Royal Bank of Scotland Plc v Etridge [2001] UKHL 44 the House of Lords (since renamed the UK Supreme Court) significantly extended the circumstances in which a financier will be put on constructive notice of misrepresentation or undue influence committed against an individual executing a Guarantee or other security, but there remains a great deal of misunderstanding of the relevant principles.
The Government has announced that it is committed to a long-term wholesale reform of the Consumer Credit regime.
Whilst welcoming this announcement, it is rather difficult to see how there was any alternative.
Much of the legislation and regulatory framework around Consumer Credit in the UK has intimate links with the European Consumer Credit regime, which goes some way to explaining the inordinate complexity of the current framework, which is comprised of numerous layers of primary and secondary legislation, including the Consumer Credit Act 1974 (“CCA”), detailed Regulations made under it and the FCA Handbook.
Disclosure of Brokers’ Commissions remains very much a live issue within the asset finance industry, and in our last Briefing we suggested some practical steps in Dealing with Broker Commission Refund Claims – Click Here
Since then we have been involved in a number of instructions which has caused us to undertake a thorough review of the case law both in terms of the Wood and Pengully decisions and various other cases, which has given us some encouragement in the approach to be adopted to at least some of these claims.
We recently succeeded in full in a claim for damages for conversion on behalf of a financier which raised the apparently novel point of whether a large Excavator fell within the definition of “motor vehicle”.
In De Lage Landen Leasing Limited t/a Hyundai Construction Equipment Europe Finance v Dring (Manchester Circuit Commercial Court 13 July 2022) both parties were the victim of a fraudulent disposition of the Claimant’s Excavator by the Hirer and/or an associated company.
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