John Day is a highly experienced, City-trained, litigator, who qualified as a solicitor in 1998.
John specialises in complex commercial litigation. His practice focuses on civil fraud, financial services and high value professional negligence disputes, but he also advises on a broad range of commercial matters, including contractual, trust, partnership joint-venture and company disputes.
Many of John’s cases have an international element to them and he frequently handles applications for freezing injunctions, third party disclosure orders and other forms of urgent interim relief.
For the first 5 years of his career, John worked as an international shipping and trade lawyer, mainly for Scandinavian ship-owners and insurers.
In 2001, he joined Baker McKenzie, where he broadened his litigation experience by working on larger, more diverse, commercial, disputes.
In 2010, John co-founded the highly successful boutique litigation practice, DS Law (formerly DaySparkes Solicitors) of Gray’s Inn, which has been ranked by the UK Legal 500 as a leading London law firm for commercial and banking litigation since 2012.
In recent years, John has acted for more than 20 individual victims of the infamous HBOS Reading banking scandal in complex fraud claims against Lloyds Banking Group for the recovery of damages ranging from £1m to £50m in value.
One of John’s previous cases (RBS v Highland, Scott Law LLP & Others ([2013] EWCA 328) remains the leading Court of Appeal authority on anti-suit injunctions.
In addition to his core practice, John has brought two, successful, and very high-profile, judicial reviews against the UK Government and has handled a range of tribunal and arbitral cases.
What the directories say:
- “John understands what clients need in conflict situations and never fails to deliver” (Legal 500 2020 Ed.).
- “John Day is commercial, robust and very effective.” (Legal 500 2021 Ed.)
- “John Day is “highly experienced and utterly unflappable” (Legal 500 2022 Ed.)
- “John Day has excellent instincts when it comes to litigation and a very good way with clients” (Legal 500 2022 Ed.)
- “John Day is a highly motivated, keen strategist and very experienced litigator. You will want to have him on your team” (Legal 500 2022 Ed.)
