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Anita de Villiers

Senior Associate

Contact
CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang LLP
Cannon Place
78 Cannon Street
London
EC4N 6AF
United Kingdom
Languages English, German, Afrikaans

Anita is a Senior Associate in the Dispute Resolution team. She has extensive dispute resolution experience with a focus on complex fraud and contractual disputes, investigations and injunctions, as well as applications to the English High Court for evidence for use in overseas proceedings under The Hague Convention on the Taking of Evidence Abroad in Civil or Commercial Matters. She has a particular interest in advising on novel cryptocurrency related disputes. 

Anita is currently the lead associate acting on behalf of a private client in the approx. £2 billion ‘super trial’ commenced by the Danish Tax Agency (Skatteforvaltningen) following the collapse of Solo Capital (per Mr Justice Foxton “one of the largest and most complex pieces of litigation to be heard in the Commercial Court”), which concerns allegations of international fraud and money-laundering. It is one of The Lawyer’s “Top 20 cases of 2021”.  She is also providing ongoing assistance to a bank in respect of a multi-hundred million-dollar trade finance fraud. 

She previously acted on behalf of former subsidiaries of Yukos Oil and senior management in multi-jurisdictional litigation arising out of the misappropriation of assets (“Top 20 cases of 2020”) and on behalf of Slater & Gordon in respect of its multi-million pound breach of warranty and fraudulent misrepresentation claim against Watchstone Group plc (formerly Quindell plc) arising from its highly-publicised acquisition of Quindell’s legal services division in 2015 (“Top 20 cases of 2019”).

In 2019, Anita was part of a small team to take home The Legal Week’s ‘Corporate/Commercial Litigation Team of the Year’ award in recognition for her work in defending Sports Information Services Limited (SIS) in a complex case involving an unusual application of the law of copyright and database rights, unlawful means conspiracy and breach of confidence to horseracing and, more generally, to the collection and distribution of data. An application for permission to appeal to the Supreme Court is currently pending. The final outcome of the case will have significant implications on the scope of the tort of unlawful means conspiracy in English law and more broadly, the legal protection afforded to commercially valuable information which is not subject to protection by traditional intellectual property rights.  

Before joining CMS, Anita was an Associate in the Litigation team at Clayton Utz in Perth and Sydney, Australia, where she worked on large scale commercial litigation and regulatory investigations across multiple Australian jurisdictions. 

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Education

  • 2012 - Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice, College of Law
  • 2011 - Bachelor of Laws (LLB)         
  • 2011 - Bachelor of Arts (BA) majoring Political Science and International Relations
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04/12/2023
Hague 2019 and recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments – a welcome...
UK Government confirms entry into Hague 2019On 23 November 2023 it was confirmed that the UK government will sign the Hague Convention of 2 July 2019 on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments...
05/09/2023
CMS Disputes 101 - Autumn Webinar Series 2023
CMS’ popular Disputes 101 annual webinar series returns in Autumn 2023. This series will take place over 11 weeks, every Tuesday from 5 September – 28 November at 2pm - 3pm. Partners and associates...
05/09/2023
Disputes 101: Autumn webinar series and recordings 2023
medium Available On-Demand – Disputes 101: CMS Autumn Webinar Series for 2023 Now in its fourth year, our webinar series took place over 13 weeks, from 5 September – 28 November 2023, Tuesdays at...
11/10/2022
Disputes 101: Evidence
Welcome to the Disputes 101: CMS Autumn Webinar Series for 2022 This series will take place on most Tuesdays from 6 September – 29 November at 2pm - 3pm, taking a short break only for October half...
03/08/2022
Disputes 101: Autumn webinar series and recordings 2022
medium Available On-Demand – Disputes 101: CMS Autumn Webinar Series for 2022 Now in its third year, our webinar series took place over 11 weeks, from 6 September – 29 November 2022, Tuesdays at 2pm...
01/12/2021
Disputes 101: CMS Autumn Webinar Series 2021
Welcome to the Disputes 101: CMS Autumn Webinar Series 2021 This series originally took place over 11 weeks, every Wednesday from 8 September – 1 December 2021 at 2-3pm. Partners and associates from...
06/10/2021
Disputes 101 - Jurisdiction and Choice of Law
Welcome to the Disputes 101: CMS Autumn Webinar Series This series will take place over 11 weeks, every Wednesday from 8 September – 1 December 2021 at 2-3pm. Partners and associates from CMS’ litigation...
09/09/2021
The future of sports data: Live Data - part 1
The trouble with relying on breach of confidence and unlawful means conspiracy (the case of TRP v SIS)The previous articles in our The Future of Sports Data series focused on athletes’ data. In this...
02/02/2021
Rights in sports data – Court of Appeal
In the judgment of The Racing Partnership Limited & Ors v Sports Information Services Limited [2020] EWCA Civ 1300, the Court of Appeal considered important issues relating to: (1) the legal protection...
09/04/2020
Renegotiating or cancelling commercial arrangements in light of COVID-19
The spread of COVID-19 potentially undermines the viability of a huge range of commercial arrangements, fromcontracts for one-off (or multiple) events to long term supply contracts. The reasons why these...
13/08/2019
Gambling Commission changes to Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice...
From 31 October 2019 certain changes to the Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (“LCCP”) will take effect following the Gambling Commission’s (the “Com­mis­sion”) publication on 31 July 2019...
11/07/2019
Rights in sports data
The judgment of Zacaroli J handed down in The Racing Partnership Ltd & Ors v Done Brothers (Cash Betting) Ltd & Ors [2019] EWHC 1156 is of significant interest and general importance principally for two...