Year of call 1993
Silk 2018
Instructing Andrew
For further information or to instruct Andrew please contact one of our following clerks:
“Andrew is very intellectual and his arguments are very clever and technical.”
Chambers UK 2024
“Andrew is excellent in all respects. His legal and tactical advice is confident and direct and he is not afraid of nailing his colours to the mast when it comes to making tough calls on strategy. His pleadings are excellent and his skills as a trial advocate go from strength to strength.”
Legal 500 2024
“Andrew has a very good smooth style and is a commercial practitioner. He is great with clients and awfully good on his feet.”
Chambers UK 2023
“He’s an excellent counsel and the pleadings he drafts are top-notch. He cuts through the paperwork.” “He is great with clients.”
Chambers UK 2022
“Incredibly impressive on the detail – commercial in his approach, with superb drafting skills. He gets on very well with clients. Robust and calls it as he sees it – he doesn’t sit on the fence but gives clear, definitive and reasoned advice.”
Legal 500 2022
“A formidable but always reasonable opponent. He consistently provides high calibre, clear advice.”
Chambers UK 2021
“He is quickly developing his silk practice.”
Legal 500 2021
“Embarrassingly good on his feet and great with clients.”
Legal 500 2020 (Property Litigation)
“He is extremely user-friendly and his tenacious and practical approach makes him a favourite with clients.”
Chambers UK 2019
“He can very quickly review a large amount of information and detail and provide practical and specialised advice, often at short notice.”
Chambers UK 2019
“Gets on well with clients, a good advocate and calm under pressure.”
Legal 500 2018
“A property specialist who is known for his expertise in cases driven by professional negligence claims. Sources see him as an approachable and accessible practitioner.”
Chambers UK 2016
‘Incredibly impressive on the detail – commercial in his approach, with superb drafting skills. He gets on very well with clients. Robust and calls it as he sees it – he doesn’t sit on the fence but gives clear, definitive and reasoned advice.‘ – Legal 500 2022.
Andrew Butler KC practises in the areas of Property and Business & Commercial, and is Head of Chambers’ Business & Commercial Group. While he accepts instructions across the full spectrum of commercial and property work, he particularly specialises in development disputes and professional negligence matters, with company law issues also forming an increasing part of his caseload.
Andrew is a qualified mediator and a member of both the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and the London Court of International Arbitration. He is an adjudicator on the panel of the Professional Negligence Bar Association. He was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2018 and his silk practice has gone from strength to strength, involving an appearance in the Supreme Court, and regular appearances in the Court of Appeal, as well as the Commercial and Business and Property Courts.
Andrew was short-listed for Barrister of the Year in the Lawyer Awards 2020.
Andrew’s background is in Real Property and the majority of his practice is in professional negligence and commercial claims with a property element.
In the former context, he has undertaken claims against architects, surveyors, insurance brokers and solicitors, among other professionals (see, further, “Professional Negligence” below).
In the latter context, he undertakes cases in a variety of fields, including a recent Supreme Court case involving estate agency fees (Devani v Wells [2019] 2 WLR 617). In 2022, he has undertaken High Court trials in matters as diverse as landlord consent to assignment (Gabb v Farrokhzad [2022] EWHC 212, see link to news article here) and liability for a devastating fire at an oil processing plant in Essex (Smith v Howard [2022] EWHC 562 (TCC)). Of Andrew’s performance in securing victory in the latter case, his instructing solicitor commented: “The result of course turned on cross-examination, where hits were scored on both sides. Perceived [sc. expert] bias proved to be the bigger hit. Not all silks would have been so effective.”
Andrew routinely undertakes advisory work on real estate disputes and developments; recent examples include the viability of the redevelopment of a major UK shopping centre and two disputes concerning prime residential real estate in the Bahamas.
Andrew undertakes purely commercial work, often with an international element. A particular example is the long-running case of UCP v Nectrus (reported on quantum at [2020] PNLR 9), in which Andrew (despite only being instructed shortly before a 12-day Commercial Court trial) successfully defended the majority of a multi-million pound claim made against a Cypriot entity in relation to a property venture in India. The case has attracted interest in particular in relation to a reflective loss case advanced by Andrew; while this was rejected by the trial judge and the Court of Appeal in Nectrus, it has recently been confirmed by the Privy Council in a different case (Primeo v Bank of Bermuda) that the defence was sound and that Nectrus is wrongly decided in this respect. An application to re-open the appeal in Nectrus has been successful [2022] EWCA Civ 949.
Other recent commercial cases undertaken by Andrew include Auty v Duru, a high value s.994 petition concerning a Turkish cosmetics group, Quantum Advisory Ltd. v Quantum Actuarial LLP [2022] 1 All ER (Comm) 473, a leading Court of Appeal authority on covenants in restraint of trade, and TBD Owen Hollands v Simons [2021] 1 WLR 992, an important Court of Appeal decision on search orders and common interest privilege.
As set out in the Real Property section, much of Andrew’s work both within and beyond the field of property related disputes has a professional negligence element and he acts in claims against all manner of professionals including insurance brokers, solicitors and architects. Aside from UCP v Nectrus (see “Commercial Disputes” above and reported at [2020] PNLR 9), recent and/or ongoing cases include:
Andrew is frequently called upon to talk about negligence issues and lectured on the RIBA CPD programme for many years. He is a member of the PNLA and PNBA, and also sits on the adjudication panel of the latter.
Andrew is a trained mediator and has ample experience of the mediation process, both as advocate and mediator.