Leaders List interview: 60 seconds with Charlotte Hill, Penningtons Manches Cooper
Citywealth speaks to Charlotte Hill, Partner at Penningtons Maches Cooper
Tell Citywealth’s readers about your role.
I’m a partner in Penningtons Manches Cooper’s Dispute Resolution team and I lead the firm’s digital asset group. I advise on a broad range of high-value cross-border disputes across a number of commercial and business sectors, including financial services (having previously been on secondment at a large institutional bank), company disputes, corporate insolvency and civil fraud. I have specialist expertise in digital assets where I advise clients about cryptocurrencies, NFTs and blockchain disputes, having recently acted in one of the very few contested cryptocurrency disputes which resulted in a successful outcome for my corporate client. I won the title of ‘Woman of the Year – FinTech/Crypto Innovation – UK’ at the Citywealth Powerwomen Awards, for the impact with my work in the sector.
What are the most pressing issues you are dealing with in your role at the moment?
Trying to get valuable crypto fraud claims up and running with third party litigation funding – I have a handful of large group actions relating to crypto disputes which take a lot of time and effort to prepare them so that they’re suitable for litigation funding to get them off the ground and running.
I am an avid crypto-supporter and constantly have to defend its business use case and its legitimacy. Ultimately it’s a brilliant technology that is here to stay and the quicker people learn that the better.
How would your clients describe you?
Luckily I don’t need to guess, as they have said some kind words about me in the legal directories. I am recognised as being ‘tenacious’, ‘a real force of nature’, and an ‘opponent-whisperer’, and am said to be ‘brilliant at case management and marshalling evidence’ with ‘a particular talent for sniffing out the best pieces of evidence in a case’.
If you could change an existing piece of legislation, what would it be?
The Financial Services and Markets Bill that is currently progressing through Parliament. The Bill plans to regulate the crypto industry more closely, but sadly it only relates to stablecoins at the moment. It needs to go further to provide certainty for businesses in the industry to ensure that London and the UK remains an attractive jurisdiction.
Best and worst parts of your job.
Best has to be the variety of work and the fact that I get to learn about my clients’ businesses each and every day. The worst is that it never ends – my to do list never seems to go down.
What is the most valuable piece of advice you have been given?
That perseverance is key – if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. I am reminded of this most days in my job, particularly when settlement negotiations are stalling or people aren’t listening properly.
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