Danielle De Val
Legal Director
Exeter
danielle.deval@brownejacobson.com
+44 (0)3300452293
Danielle is a Legal Director in the FPR team having joined the firm in September 2022. She works as a defence and policy coverage lawyer specialising in professional indemnity and directors’ and officers’ (D&O) insurance.
Danielle has acted for a range of professionals including solicitors, accountants and construction professionals. Alongside that, Danielle also has considerable experience of acting for D&O insurers (on coverage) or their insured directors/officers (on defence) in complex, high-value claims. Danielle was identified as a key lawyer at Kennedys in Legal 500’s 2022 rankings (for Professional Negligence, South West).
Danielle has experience of working in-house at insurers and is familiar with the demands and pressures that insurers face. She also delivers training to clients, has published articles on case law and other topics of interest, and contributes to the firm’s ESG in 3D podcasts.
Featured experience
Director disqualification proceedings
Acting for insured directors in defence of director disqualification proceedings and/or claims by liquidators or administrators.
De Sena V Notaro [2020] EWHC 1031 (Ch)
Acting for a firm of a accountants to successfully defend a multi-party claim for approximately £10m at trial involving shareholders, accountants and solicitors and arising out of the demerger of a company.
Cross claims monitoring
Acting for D&O insurers in a monitoring capacity in connection with employment and civil cross claims between a company and its current and former directors.
High-value claim policy response
Advising insurers on policy response in a litigated high-value claim involving complex company structures, eight defendants and a number of potentially applicable policies.
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Trigger happy when directors’ duties are the target?
In a judgment handed down yesterday the Supreme Court has affirmed that a so called “creditor duty” exists for directors such that in some circumstances company directors are required to act in accordance with, or to consider the interests of creditors. Those circumstances potentially arise when a company is insolvent or where there is a “probability” of an insolvency. We explore below the “trigger” for such a test to apply and its implications.