Alexander Heylin is a commercial chancery barrister ranked Band 1 for Company by Chambers UK Bar 2026. His practice combines company and shareholder disputes, contentious insolvency and restructuring, civil fraud and asset recovery, and commercial litigation, with a distinctive cross-border dimension: he has practised as a partner in the Turks and Caicos Islands and as a principal at a New York law firm, and is called to the Bars of England and Wales, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
He is instructed by solicitors, insolvency practitioners, overseas attorneys and in-house teams, most often where company, insolvency, fraud and cross-border issues overlap. His practice is predominantly contentious, with substantial experience of trials, complex interlocutory applications and appellate advocacy, including two Court of Appeal appearances in 2025.
Recent and significant work
- Syspal Capital Ltd v Truman [2025] EWCA Civ 469; [2024] EWHC 1561 (Ch) — sole counsel for Mr Truman, instructed by Fieldfisher, at first instance before Roth J and in the Court of Appeal, in a dispute over the construction of articles of association and the compulsory transfer and valuation of shares. Alexander succeeded at first instance in establishing that the shares fell to be transferred at fair value; the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal.
- Servis-Terminal LLC v Drelle (No 2) [2025] EWCA Civ 698 — sole counsel for the trustees in bankruptcy, instructed by Latham & Watkins, in the consequential Court of Appeal proceedings that followed the substantive appeal on whether an unrecognised foreign judgment can found a bankruptcy petition (the substantive decision was subsequently reversed by the Supreme Court in [2026] UKSC 29).
- Malben Ltd v McCarthy (Business and Property Courts in Cardiff, 2022–2023) — leading junior for the petitioner, instructed by Acuity Law, in a substantial unfair-prejudice dispute concerning a holding company with an industrial estate and other commercial property valued at more than £30 million.
- Magee v Crocker [2024] EWHC 1723 (Ch); [2024] EWHC 2353 (Ch) — junior counsel with Mohammed Zaman KC, instructed by Penningtons Manches Cooper, in a 12-day High Court trial concerning a disputed transfer of shares, alleged fraudulent misrepresentation, pre-emption rights and the novation of a shareholders’ agreement.
- Three Arrows Capital (BVI Commercial Court, 2024) — junior counsel for the liquidators, instructed by Ogier in the BVI and Latham & Watkins in New York, in high-value insolvency proceedings concerning the interaction between Chapter 15 proceedings in the United States and substantial preference claims in the BVI.
- QVT Fund V LP v China Zenix Auto International Group Ltd (BVI Commercial Court, BVIHC (COM) 0026 of 2014) — counsel for the majority-shareholder defendants in BVI unfair-prejudice and conspiracy proceedings arising from an international corporate and shareholder dispute, with claims valued at more than US$100 million.
- FCI Markets Inc (in liquidation) (BVI and DIFC, 2018) — sole counsel for the provisional liquidator and subsequently the liquidator in cross-border recovery work connected with an alleged US$300 million Ponzi scheme operated from Dubai, combining insolvency, alleged fraud, asset recovery and cross-border litigation.
- Biscoe v Milner [2021] EWHC 763 (Ch); [2022] 1 BCLC 368 — counsel for two defendants in a ten-day High Court trial before Meade J arising from the collapse of a legal-redress investment scheme, involving fraudulent misrepresentation, directors’ duties and insolvency. All claims against his clients failed.
- BDI Properties Ltd v Murkz Concrete Products Ltd (High Court, 2025) — counsel for the petitioner on a successful High Court appeal against the dismissal of a winding-up petition; the dismissal was set aside and the petition remitted.
Much of Alexander’s fraud and asset-recovery work is confidential and does not appear among his reported cases.
