An uplift of between £5-10m from a settlement relating to the long-running Berezovsky litigation helped bump Addleshaw Goddard over the £200m turnover mark in 2015/16, Legal Business can reveal.
The news comes as a High Court judge has ruled the late Russian oligarch’s estate is ‘hopelessly insolvent’ with £34m remaining while creditors’ claims run into hundreds of millions of pounds. The judge outlined financial facts in a ruling on the latest stage of litigation involving insolvency trustees and Boris Berezovsky’s former partner, Elena Gorbunova.
Earlier this month, Addleshaws announced it had surpassed the £200m revenue mark, with turnover up by 5% to £201.8m, which managing partner John Joyce attributed to a strong performance from the firm’s transactional practice, as well as a strategic plan set in motion two years ago to improve business focus, performance and returns.
An Addleshaws partner told Legal Business an email was circulated to the firm two weeks ago from Joyce (pictured) outlining that the figures showed a good performance underpinned by strong corporate and transactional activity, and confirmed revenues included an element of uplift from fees recovered from the Berezovsky litigation.
Addleshaws won the case last summer against the administrators of Berezovsky’s estate and secured over £12.6m in ‘hard earned’ fees at London’s High Court.
However the trustees appealed the decision and an undisclosed settlement was made in December. That sum is said to range between £5m and £10m – enough to push Addleshaws revenues over the £200m mark.
An Addleshaws spokesperson said: ‘We pointed out in our year end press announcement that last year’s figures included an element of uplift in fees paid for work executed in previous years but which couldn’t be recognised until last year. That detail is confidential, but even without any uplift we were pleased to record a rise in income and profits.’
sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk
For more on Addleshaw Goddard under John Joyce, read: ‘Welcome to the John Joyce show: Addleshaws’ head aims to push national firm centre stage’
