3 Verulam Buildings is one of the pre-eminent London sets for professional negligence work, ranking highly in Chambers & Partners and the Legal 500 both as a set and in the listings of individual silks and juniors.
Members of 3VB act for claimants and defendants on a wide range of professional liability matters, including large, complex and valuable corporate disputes, as well as smaller private claims. Their expertise extends to claims involving banks, financial advisors, insurance brokers, software designers, veterinary surgeons, solicitors, barristers, accountants, surveyors, architects and engineers.
3VB is particularly highly regarded for its expertise in financial services disputes, and several barristers acted in the high-profile claim brought by Richard Desmond against Credit Suisse International over the alleged mis-selling of investments in structured derivatives. Members of 3VB are also regularly instructed to represent lenders, typically in claims against solicitors and surveyors, but also against a property developer in the unusual case of Platform Funding Ltd v Persimmon Homes (South East) Ltd, which raised a novel issue as to whether a developer owed a duty of care to a mortgagee.
The set has been involved in many of the major actions of the past decade relating to alleged negligence of insurance brokers, including AB Orlen Lietuva v AON UK Ltd. A growing area of importance is art and cultural property, and members of 3VB recently successfully defended Sotheby’s against a claim that it had mistakenly identified as a copy an original work by Caravaggio.
