Michael Colledge

Michael is a Partner and senior member of the Commercial Litigation team in Southampton. He assists clients in resolving complex contractual and commercial disputes. In addition, Michael acts for clients in claims against professionals in all areas.

Main areas of practice

Michael’s main area of practice is related to a wide variety of commercial litigation and professional negligence. Most of Michael’s work involves significant claims in the High Court with cases also in the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court. Michael has developed particular expertise in negligence, insurance law, regulatory law and intellectual property disputes.

Clients

Michael acts for a broad range of clients from individuals to corporate clients including listed companies and well-known brands.

Significant experience

Professional negligence
Michael is experienced in advising clients on a wide range of professional negligence issues, cases of note include:

• Conducting a claim in relation to an accountant’s failure to advise on a number of complex partnership taxation issues.
• Acting in relation to a claim against a top 50 firm of accountant in relation to advice given relating to the computation of group company basic corporation tax banding.  The claim included losses over a period of 15 years.
• In addition, to claims against accountancy firms Michael has acted on substantial claims against property agents including a negligence claim in excess of £50m in relation to the mismanagement by a leading firm of property agents in relation to a substantial flagship property in the centre of London.
• Michael has also acted on numerous claims against solicitors ranging from conveyancing issues including restrictive covenants and planning issues to issues relating to company commercial matters and contractual drafting.

General commercial litigation
Michael has a broad range of litigation experience in all courts including the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court. His litigation case load varies from without notice injunctions to protect client assets to long-running cases involving complex facts and legal argument.  Cases of note include:

• Acting for the SRA in the High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court case of AIG v Woodman [2017] UKSC 18. This is the leading case in respect of aggregation in Solicitors’ Professional Indemnity Insurance.
• Acting in Godiva Mortgages v Travelers Insurance Company and others [2011] EWHC 3687 (Comm) involving a successful application by the Law Society in both its representational capacity and regulatory capacity to intervene into proceedings. This case was listed as one of The Lawyer’s top 20 cases of 2014.

Expertise

• Litigation & Dispute Resolution
• Arbitration

Career

Michael read law at Leicester University gaining a First-Class Honours degree. He completed his legal studies in Nottingham. Michael qualified in 2005 and spent eight years at Russell-Cooke in London before relocating to the South Coast and was made Partner at Blake Morgan in July 2022.