Expertise and Professional Background
Sarah is head of the Litigation and Insolvency practice of Harneys’ Cayman Islands office and a member of the Distressed Funds Group. She specialises in cross border insolvency and restructuring work including fraud, receiverships, asset tracing and corporate recovery, and has extensive experience in international commercial litigation and arbitration.
Prior to relocating offshore Sarah practiced as a barrister in England from 1988 to 1998 where she undertook a wide range of insolvency, banking and chancery litigation from the leading commercial chambers of Mark Littman QC, and was also in Germany for three years where she represented a government party on three international arbitrations. She spent over five years with another leading offshore law firm in the Cayman Islands from 1998, before joining Harneys in the British Virgin Islands in 2004. Sarah relocated back to the Cayman Islands to join Harneys' Cayman office in 2009 and became a partner in 2010.
Some of the notable cases Sarah has been involved with include: the liquidation of BCCI (Overseas) – the world’s largest ever banking insolvency; Enron Inc – including the winding up or sale of some 426 Enron Entities incorporated in the Cayman Islands; ICO Global Communications (a US$42 billion restructuring); “Cash4titles” – 64 connected liquidations concerning a US$300 million Ponzi Scheme Fraud (representing both the SEC appointed Receiver in the US and the Cayman Joint Liquidators); and litigation concerning the Ritz Carlton (Cayman) Development. Her distressed funds work includes acting for investors in Bear Stearns High Grade Structured Credit Strategies Funds, the Long Term Capital Fund and the Optimum Fund and the creditors in the liquidation of the High Risk Opportunities Hub Fund.
Sarah is an experienced advocate who has a number of reported cases in the High Court of Justice and Privy Council in London as well as the Grand Court and Court of Appeal in the Cayman Islands. She is an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (UK) and a Certified Fraud Examiner.
Sarah also speaks fluent German.
Education
University of Cambridge (BA Hons) History and Law, 1987
City University (previously Inns of Court School of Law), Bar Finals, 1988
University of Bonn, Germany, Masters in Comparative Law, 1996
Bar Admissions
Admitted to the Bar of England and Wales, 1988
Admitted in the Cayman Islands, 1998
Admitted in the British Virgin Islands, 2004
Admitted in Anguilla, 2004
Partner since 2010