Laura Crawford is one of our two partners in the Leeds office specialising in Restructuring and Insolvency. She has over 20 years experience in the insolvency field having spent a number of years as a partner in another national legal practice. Before joining Squire Sanders in 2009, Laura spent a couple of years in industry on the board of a private investment company dealing with the turnaround of distressed companies.

She has extensive experience in all aspects of insolvency including non contentious corporate restructuring, management and bank led distressed turnaround and, distressed sales and acquisitions. Laura also has substantial contentious experience including antecedent transaction recoveries, wrongful trading and misfeasance actions and security enforcement which have resulted in a number of reported cases.

Laura has been listed as a leading Restructuring & Insolvency lawyer in both Chambers and the Legal 500.

Laura is also the head of the Leeds Office Charity Committee.

Publications

• Commenting on the Hargreaves v Action decision in The Lawyer
• Commenting on the Hollicourt v Bank of Ireland decision in The Lawyer

Reported Cases

• B Hargreaves Ltd v Action 2000 Ltd: [1993] BCLC.1111
• Murray v YFM & others: [1998] 1 W.L.R 951
• Hollicourt Ltd (In liquidation) v bank of Ireland: [2001] Ch.555; [2001] W.L.R. 290
• Lloyds Bank Plc v Cassidy: [2004] EWCA Civ. 1767
• Amble Assets LLP and another v Longbenton Foods Ltd [2011] EWHC 1943 (Ch)

Awards 

• Endless LLP St Nick Turnaround Awards 2009 – Turnaround Woman of the Year
• Yorkshire Lawyer Awards 2010 – Corporate Recovery Team of the Year

Representative Experience

• Advising a PLC in relation to the restructuring of one of its divisions including the removal of dormant subsidiaries and grooming a superfluous loss making subsidiary to enable it to be placed into creditor’s voluntary liquidation.
• Advising the Administrators of a large frozen food processing plant, including negotiating a sale of the business and assets of the company, and a consensual return of the site to the local authority. The failure by the purchaser to complete the transaction necessitated injunctive proceedings followed by a successful substantive claim resulting in a full recovery for the appointing bank.
• Acting on behalf of the Judicial factor appointed over a £35m estate which had had certain claims intimated against it which could render it “potentially” insolvent. Organising the orderly realization of the property portfolio comprised within the estate and defending the claims which have been threatened against the estate. 
• Past Times Limited – advising the company’s management, its private equity funder and KPMG as administrators in relation to this distressed national high street retailer of historic memorabilia. 
• Advising administrators from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in relation to the Administration of an ambulance manufacturer, and renegotiating contracts with various NHS trusts in order to realise value in the partially complete ambulances and satisfy outstanding contracts.
• Advising management of this household name internet business. Although seriously distressed we did manage to effect a managed solvent sale of the business.