Nicola McKinney - Partner

Nicola is a barrister and partner with over twenty years’ commercial litigation experience, specialising in complex commercial and cross-jurisdictional disputes, particularly civil fraud and asset recovery cases, and matters relating to cryptocurrency, digital assets and emerging technologies.  

Starting her career as a criminal defence barrister, Nicola was admitted, in 2004, to the Bar in England & Wales and in The Bahamas. She developed a commercial practice and appeared as counsel in the Chancery and Commercial High Court, Employment Appeals Tribunal and Privy Council, as well as advising on Bahamian law cases. In 2014 she joined a leading boutique litigation firm, and has worked on several of the most high-profile and high-value recent cases in the English Courts.

Nicola specialises in civil fraud cases, many of which involve worldwide freezing orders and other forms of injunctive relief, as well as challenges to jurisdiction, complex investigations, potential reputational damage and human rights claims. She acts for companies and for high net worth entrepreneurs.  She has drawn on her multi-disciplinary background when working on these complex cases, particularly where there are co-existing criminal and civil disputes with potentially competing strategies, coordinated legal and media attacks, and multiple proceedings ongoing in several jurisdictions.  Recent cases include:

• Advising a high-profile individual on proceedings involving fraud and corruption claims, allegations of political motivation, and data hacking, across Europe, Africa and the Caribbean, coordinating defences and counter-suits and a petition to the European Court of Human Rights.
• Leading the defence team for a Thai businessman in a $1 billion fraud dispute (named as ‘The Lawyer Top 20’ case in 2022) in the Commercial Court, related to allegations of unlawful means conspiracy and misappropriation of shares in a renewable energy firm.
• Acting for one of the individual defendants, the owner of the corporate advisor to the claimant sovereign wealth fund, to obtain the discharge of a $3 billion worldwide freezing order on grounds of material non-disclosure, in this leading case on the subject.
• Representing Russian clients subject to a $250 million worldwide freezing order, coordinating a global team of lawyers and advisors in Cyprus, Dubai, Italy, Switzerland and offshore.

Nicola has worked at the cutting edge of crypto fraud litigation, and led the successful defence team for the leading Thai crypto exchange in the case of D’Aloia v Persons Unknown & Ors [2024] EWHC 2342 (Ch). Claims brought against the defendant crypto exchanges, including as constructive trustees and in unjust enrichment, in circumstances where the Claimant scam victim was unable to identify fraudsters to recover his USDT and USDC, were dismissed.  The case was well-publicised during interlocutory proceedings, as the first instance of service via NFT being permitted in the English courts, and again as the first crypto fraud case of its kind to go to trial in this jurisdiction. The judgment is the leading English decision on crypto fraud claims, including being the first to accept a digital asset as a form of property, and to consider how tracing rules apply to digital technologies.

With extensive general commercial litigation experience, Nicola has regularly acted in shareholder disputes and commercial contract disputes, particularly in the hospitality and technology sectors.  She recently acted in for the Claimants in proceedings to enforce a $16 billion US court judgment in the English courts, for the defendant airline cargo and operations company in $225 million Commercial Court breach of guarantee claim, in a high-profile Commercial Court case alleging breach of confidential agreement (another case recognised by The Lawyer magazine as one of its Top 20 Cases of 2022), and for a leading digital technology firm, advising in relation to potential legal and reputational exposure in ongoing high-profile proceedings involving claims of hacking and fraud. She has experience in managing cases which engage complex sanctions issues.

Nicola has also acted in several Privy Council cases, including as junior counsel for the successful first Defendant in Kenneth Higgs Senior v Leshelmaryas and Annamae Woodside [2009] UKPC 47, and as Privy Council agent in Bacardi and Company Ltd v Whyms & Ors JCPC 2018/0053 (Bahamas).

What the Directories say…

“Nicola McKinney is an incredibly bright litigator with good instincts.  She runs complex, often multi-jurisdictional cases efficiently and strategically.”  (Legal 500 UK Guide 2025)

“A superstar and leader in the field.”