One of the biggest funders of high-volume claims is fighting a winding up order in the court, the Gazette can reveal. An application was made at the start of this month by a company called Lowry Trading Limited to appoint an administrator to handle the affairs of London-based Fenchurch Legal Limited.
Court documents show that Lowry Trading is represented by boutique firm Arma Litigation while Fenchurch Legal represents itself.
It is understood that the application is being contested by Fenchurch, which strongly disagrees with its basis. The funder was unable to comment further due to ongoing court proceedings but is understood still to be operating.
Fenchurch Legal has been a key figure in the emergence of high-volume firms running thousands of housing disrepair, financial mis-selling and Plevin PPI claims. It provides loans for between 12 and 18 months to cover disbursement funding and working capital requirements for work in progress.
The business model is to fund small-ticket claims at high volumes to spread the risk across multiple cases and case types.
It is not known how many firms Fenchurch Legal has partnered with, but the funder has been a named creditor owed money by practices that have fallen into administration in recent years. It was owed £2.4m by Cheshire firm Nicholson Jones Sutton Solicitors which appointed administrators in April 2025.
Almost two years ago, Fenchurch Legal itself applied for the appointment of administrators at Liverpool firm McDermott Smith. The company was owed around £900,000 when the claims firm folded.
Fenchurch Legal was incorporated in 2020 and operates from an address in central London. The most recent accounts, for the year to 31 May 2024, show the funder was running with net liabilities of almost £567,000. It was owed around £17 million and had £241,000 cash reserves, but owed £12.5m within a year and a further £5.3m in the longer term.
According to Companies House, founder Louisa Klouda and Jerry Yanover remain as directors.
Fenchurch Legal appears to have several links with an investment vehicle named Huddle Capital Group, which is currently in administration. Klouda is still listed as a director of Huddle and she previously sat on the board with Anthony Pickthall, who was also a director of Fenchurch Legal until April 2023.
Huddle Capital Group was named last year in Lowry Trading Ltd & Anor v Haycox, a High Court case where Lowry had brought a claim in deceit against businessman and entrepreneur Matt Haycox.
Lowry, a company owned by a family trust which has applied to wind up Fenchurch Legal, argued in court that Haycox acted as a broker in respect of loans worth several million pounds into two special purpose vehicles. These investments turned out to be worthless.
The court heard that Haycox was not a director of companies in the Huddle group, but it was alleged that he acted as a shadow director. Haycox told the court he did not seek to induce Lowry to do anything. His Honour Judge Pearce gave summary judgment against Haycox on the basis that the defendant had no real prospect of successfully defending the claim. It was later reported by the Yorkshire Post that Haycox had been ordered to pay more than £3m.
In a marketing brochure for Huddle in 2022, seen by the Gazette, it was stated that Fenchurch Legal was partly owned by Huddle Capital. Klouda was listed in the brochure as Huddle chief operating officer, with Pickthall as finance director and Haycox the business development director.
A spokesperson for Fenchurch Legal stated the document was outdated and since the administration of Huddle two years ago, Klouda has been the sole shareholder of Fenchurch Legal. They said that the High Court case involving Haycox was unrelated to the application to appoint administrators made by Lowry Trading.
