Experience

Sarah has over 35 years’ experience in cross-border Insolvency and restructuring as well as complex international commercial litigation and arbitration matters. She launched the law firm Sinclairs in 2013 and is head of the litigation & insolvency team.

 

Prior to relocating offshore Sarah practised as a barrister in England from 1988 to 1998 where she undertook a wide range of insolvency, banking and chancery litigation from the leading commercial chambers of Mark Littman QC. She also spent three years' in Germany representing a Middle Eastern Government in three International Arbitrations concerning construction and military supply contracts.  

 

As a senior associate at Appleby in the Cayman Islands from 1998 to 2003 Sarah was involved in such notable cases as the liquidation of BCCI (Overseas) - the world’s largest ever banking insolvency; Enron Inc  - including the winding up or sale of some 426 Enron Entities incorporated in the Cayman Islands; ICO Global Communications (a US$42 billion restructuring) and Cash4titles - 57 connected liquidations concerning a US$300 million Ponzi Scheme Fraud (representing both The SEC appointed receiver in the US and the Cayman Joint Official Liquidators).

 

Sarah subsequently worked with Harneys in the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands (as partner and head of Cayman litigation and insolvency). Her most recent role before establishing Sinclairs was as senior counsel at another Cayman Islands law firm.

 

Sarah has been a Certified Fraud Examiner since 2003. She specialises in cross-border insolvency and restructuring work including fraud, receiverships, asset tracing and corporate recovery. This has involved a considerable number of distressed funds matters: acting for liquidators, directors, fund managers, creditors and investors of failed investment funds.  Her distressed fund cases include:

 

• representing hfc limited as a court appointed representative party of a class of unpaid redemption creditors in the 22 liquidations of Sphinx Group of Companies (with investor claims exceeding US$730 million and assets in the estate amounting to US$530 million).

 

• representing the Joint Official Liquidators of the Rye Funds, two Cayman Feeder Funds with exposure to Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities LLC.

 

• representing creditors in relation to the US$56 million liquidations of two Cayman funds in the Sextant Group.

 

• advising a UAE bank in connection with its substantial investment in a Cayman fund.

 

• Advising investors in the Primeo Fund and the Herald Fund - two Cayman investment funds exposed to the Madoff fraud.

 

Sarah has extensive experience in international commercial litigation. She is an experienced advocate with several reported cases from her appearances in the higher and appellate courts (including before Her Majesty’s Privy Council) in England, The British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands.   She has represented:

 

• the Joint Official LIquidators of Saad Investment Company (no 5) , a defendant in the US$9.4 billion “Saad” fraud case [Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi & Brothers - v- Mann Al Sanea & Ors];

 

• the plaintiff investor in a US$135m hedge fund dispute against a major international bank;

 

• the subsidiary of a NASDAQ listed company in connection with disputed merger proceedings brought by dissenting shareholders.

 

Sarah’s insolvency and restructuring work includes advising hfc limited as a co-promoter of a multi-company Scheme of Arrangement of the Sphinx Group of 22 Investment Funds sanctioned by the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands.

 

Education

Sarah graduated from the University of Cambridge with a Joint Honours Degree in History and in Law in 1987 and passed the Bar Finals Examination at the Inns of Court School of Law (now City University) in 1988.  She obtained a Masters of Comparative Law [Magister Der Rechtsvergleichung] magna cum laude from the University of Bonn, Germany in 1996.   In July 2014 she passed the New York State Bar Examinations. With a life-long love of learning, Sarah completed an MSc in positive psychology (with distinction in 2022 from the University of East London, studying remotely full time while working full time. She is currently pursuing a PhD in philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness (online) from the California Institute of Integral studies while continuing full time at Sinclairs. 

 

Sarah speaks fluent German

 

Bar Admissions

Sarah was admitted as a barrister in England and Wales in 1988, as an attorney in the Cayman Islands in 1998, as a barrister in the British Virgin Islands in 2004, as a barrister in Anguilla in 2004, and as an attorney in New York state in 2018. 

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Sarah has been a Certified Fraud Examiner since 2003 and a notary public in the Cayman Islands since 2013.