Brick Court star silk opens £2.7bn trial with blistering remarks against EY

19/05/25

The Lawyer, 19/5/25

​The hotly anticipated showdown between the joint liquidators of the collapsed NMC Health and Big Four accountancy giant Ernst & Young kicked off today with a blistering opening submission from a star silk at Brick Court.

The dispute sees Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, acting for NMC's joint liquidators, seeking to recover around £2.7bn in losses from EY, defended by RPC. This includes an alleged £1.8bn in undisclosed debt guarantees, £124m in overpaid dividends and £14m in bonuses.

Today (19 May), Brick Court's Simon Salzedo KC, instructed by Quinn, said EY's failure to spot fraudulent activity in NMC's accounts over seven years amounted to "carelessness."

Kicking off the 12-week trial, Salzedo remarked that the divergence between the parties' opening submissions was so stark they could be about different cases.

For the claimant, NMC Health PLC (in administration): Brick Court's Simon Salzedo KC, Tom Pascoe and Chintan Chandrachud, and 39 Essex's James Shaerf, instructed by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan partners Richard East, Aidan O'Rourke and Nikolas Bruce-Smith, and associates Will Bartlett, Paige Coulter, Antonia Glover, Neerja Gurnani and Alex Quirk.

For the defendant, Ernst & Young: One Essex Court's Laurence Rabinowitz KC and Alexander Polley KC, Brick Court's Thomas Plewman KC, Edward Harrison KC and Sophie Shaw, and Essex Court's Katherine Ratcliffe, instructed by RPC partners Rupert Boswall, Davina Given, Dan Hemming and Charlotte Henschen.

https://www.thelawyer.com/brick-court-star-silk-opens-2-7bn-trial-with-blistering-remarks-against-ey/