Marianne’s areas of practice are Employment, Tax, Commercial Litigation, Professional Negligence, and Insurance & Reinsurance.
She is adept at advocacy and appears regularly in the Employment Tribunal, First-tier Tribunal (Tax), Employment Appeal Tribunal, Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber), and High Court. She appears frequently unled against considerably more senior counsel, including silks, at first instance and appellate levels. She is ranked in employment as an ‘up and coming’ junior by Chambers and Partners and a ‘rising star’ by Legal 500, which highlights that she is a “superb junior who is no doubt on her way to great achievements”.
Before coming to the Bar, Marianne worked for an MP in the House of Commons and for Hanover Communications, a public relations firm with expertise in public affairs consultancy.
In 2019, she was appointed to the Attorney General’s Panel of Counsel (C Panel).
Well-regarded junior recognised for her experience in the tribunals and the High Court. She has excellent knowledge of strike injunctions, in addition to the full range of equality and discrimination matters. "She's a superb junior with in-depth knowledge and the ability to quickly get to grips with a case and achieve the client's commercial and strategic aims." "She's really approachable and responsive, and is able to distil a whole heap of information into a really good case." Represented the respondent in Loveland and Others v British Airways, a large holiday pay claim involving 22,000 employees. - Employment, Chambers UK Bar 2021
‘A superb junior who is no doubt on her way to great achievements. Her in-depth knowledge and up-to-date advocacy on employment status issues is second-to-none at her level’ - Employment, Legal 500 2021.
Marianne is recognised as an ‘up and coming’ junior by Chambers and Partners and a ‘rising star’ by Legal 500 in employment.
She practises all areas of employment and discrimination law. She has considerable experience representing clients in the Employment Tribunal, including high-value and complex multiple-day hearings, as well as substantive appeals in the Employment Appeal Tribunal, in which she has appeared unled against a leading employment silk.
She represents both claimants and respondents and works for a variety of public and private sector organisations, including multinational and FTSE 100 companies, banks, insurance companies, airlines, retailers, hotels, charities, government departments, local authorities, NHS Trusts and schools.
Marianne also has significant experience in the High Court. She specialises in industrial relations work and has experience of advising on and preparing for strike injunctions, replacement of striking workers with other staff, blacklisting and tactics for managing picket lines and protests.
She also has experience in advising and acting for both claimants and defendants in disputes relating to restrictive covenants, including issues concerning use of confidential information by ex-employees and inducing breach of contract.
Marianne has a keen interest in employment status and the gig economy, having written her LLM dissertation on the topic, and has considerable experience of the area in the tax context (see below). Her “in-depth knowledge and up-to-date advocacy on employment status issues is second-to-none at her level” (Legal 500, 2021). She is also forging a particular specialism in complex whistleblowing and discrimination cases and has written extensively about the topics. She was on the ELA Working Party addressing the European Commission's consultation on EU whistleblowing protection and is a Contributing Editor to Discrimination Law (Bloomsbury Professional).
Recent work includes:
High Court
Employment Appeal Tribunal
Employment Tribunal
Marianne accepts instructions from both HMRC and taxpayers in a contentious and advisory capacity. She has significant tax litigation experience in the First-tier Tribunal (Tax), Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber), High Court and Court of Appeal, often appearing unled in complex appeals. Her practice is focused upon areas that cross over with her employment work, namely employment status and taxation of employment income, as well as residence and domicile matters.
She is currently instructed by HMRC as junior counsel to Adam Tolley QC (Fountain Court Chambers) and Christopher Stone (Devereux), as well as being instructed as sole counsel in a number of high profile IR35 cases involving the media industry and public sector. She is able to draw upon her experience of employment status cases in the Employment Tribunal context (see above). In particular, she has acted in:
Marianne has experience of very high value residence cases. She is presently instructed by HMRC as junior counsel to Akash Nawbatt QC and Christopher Stone concerning a high net worth individual, which raises discovery issues (Hargreaves v HMRC).
She has also represented HMRC in respect of judicial review proceedings brought in the Administrative Court in the tax context.
Marianne is regularly instructed in an advisory capacity and as an advocate in commercial disputes. Much of her commercial practice involves professional negligence and insurance work (see below). Her more general commercial matters include business, property, consumer and other contractual disputes in the county courts and High Court. This includes:
She has been also led on a variety of commercial cases and assisted members of chambers with international arbitrations and mediations. She also has experience of commercial injunctions. Notably, she assisted Shaen Catherwood in obtaining a without notice injunction (from Birss J) and a costs order on the indemnity basis (from Mann J) in the Chancery Division against an ex-director of a large company in Friendly Pensions Ltd v Austin.
Marianne has worked on a range of professional negligence disputes and has particular experience of claims against solicitors, barristers, accountants, conveyancers, valuers and insurance brokers. She provides letters of claim and responses, pleadings, and advises on all aspects of a dispute (including policy coverage issues).
Marianne is an adept litigator and is regularly instructed to appear in application hearings and CCMCs in professional negligence matters. She has experience of striking out and obtaining summary judgment in respect of a multi-million pound claim brought against a firm of solicitors. She was also instructed as a junior to Richard Harrison in a high value accountant’s negligence claim which raised complex points about accessory liability and unlawful means conspiracy.
As a pupil, Marianne assisted:
Marianne accepts instructions in insurance and reinsurance work. She has experience of both advisory and contentious work. She has been instructed to review commercial combined business insurance policies for multinational and FTSE 100 companies and brokers' agreements.
As a pupil to Richard Harrison, Marianne gained experience in cases involving:
In particular, she assisted him in respect of the construction of a professional indemnity policy in a dispute worth over £2 billion.
Marianne has a broad practice with a particular focus on Employment, Tax, Commercial Litigation, Professional Negligence, and Insurance & Reinsurance work. She has experience assisting leading counsel, in chambers, with an internal investigation into bullying and harassment complaints for a world leading research company.
Marianne was instrumental in helping the smooth running of the process and conducted numerous interviews at the client’s offices which provided the basis of the investigation.
ILS
ELA
ELBA
COMBAR
BILA
Appointed to the Attorney General’s Panel of Counsel (C Panel) in 2019
LLM, specialising in Labour Law (Distinction), King's College London (2014)
GDL (Commendation) and BPTC (Very Competent), College of Law (2012-13)
BA, Philosophy, Politics and Economics (First Class Hons), University of Durham (2011)
Contributing editor to Discrimination Law (Bloomsbury Professional)
Sexual harassment in the workplace (PILJ (June 2018) 7-9)
Vicarious Liability: An Ever Expanding Concept? (ILJ (2016) 45 (4): 556-564)
Inner Temple Exhibition Award (2013)
BLS Debating Competition: Winner (2012)