Patrick Goodall KC’s entry into the Hot 100 comes off the back of a trio of big wins in the last 20 months. After beginning his career at Freshfields, Goodall moved to the Bar, joining Fountain Court as a pupil. He has since developed an impressive commercial practice with banking at its heart.
The now-deputy head of chambers at Fountain Court successfully acted for Autonomy and Hewlett-Packard in its case against Mike Lynch and the other former director of Autonomy in relation to the $11.7bn purchase of the company – a case that resulted in a judgment in 2022 of a mere 1,600 pages.
Just over a year later, Goodall won a 5-0 victory for Barclays Bank in the major Supreme Court decision on the Quincecare duty in Barclays v Philipp, overturning a unanimous Court of Appeal decision the year before. The case had caused great anxiety in the City, with banks worried that they would be on the hook for authorised push payment fraud, where a customer who has been induced by fraud directly instructs a bank to make a payment. Four months later, following a hearing in the Spring, Justice Cockerill ruled in favour of Goodall’s client Credit Suisse in its battle against special purpose vehicle Loreley Financing.
The year did not ease off after that either, with Goodall acting for the National Australia Bank in a 12-week trial ending just before Christmas. Another long trial is scheduled for the spring.