Ashok Sundaram is a Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England & Wales, admitted to the roll in 2010. He is also a qualified Advocate in India and enrolled as a member of the Bar Council of India since 2002 and practised in that jurisdiction both on Contentious & Non- Contentious matters. To enhance his professional expertise, he earned a Master’s degree in Law from a reputed University from Scotland with specialisation in International Commercial Law, E-Commerce, Dispute Resolution and International Human Rights Law.

He has been providing excellent legal advice with impeccable client care and representing clients mainly in the area of General Civil Litigation, Landlord and Tenant dispute, insolvency proceedings, Debt recovery proceedings and Intellectual Property Rights. He also specialises in public and human rights law with an emphasis on UK Immigration and Nationality Laws for individuals, families, and Multinational companies (MNCs) in the UK. Ashok has had notable success in advising high net worth clients on a number of complex matters. He also advises clients on Indian Laws relating to transfer of property, Power of Attorney, Business Agreements for Indian investors in the UK business.

By way of representation, Ashok has appeared before the Judges of the County Court, Immigration Tribunals and Employment Tribunals. Engaged with Barristers/Counsels at all the courts including Magistrate’s court, Crown Court, High Court, Court of Appeal and the UK Supreme Court, where he assisted/contributed towards the successful outcome of the proceedings.

He continues to update knowledge in his areas of practise in order to ensure competency in the profession. He attends annual conferences, seminars by notable Barristers including King’s Counsels, interactive master classes and also regularly interacts with industry experts.

Expertise extends to

• General Civil Litigation / Dispute Resolution
• UK Immigration and Nationality (individual, family and business)
• Landlord and Tenant (Residential and Commercial)
• Insolvency proceedings
• Intellectual property rights
• Debt recoveries including enforcement proceedings
• Clinical Negligence
• Licensing Laws

Civil Litigation / Dispute Resolution

Ashok has developed specialised expertise working on high value matters for variety of clients in litigation matters such as property disputes, money claims, business/contractual disputes, and all Tort claims/defence.

Represented clients at hearings, or a form of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) method, such as mediation, arbitrations, negotiations reaching settlement and conciliation.

Immigration and Nationality Law

He advises clients across a range of immigration matters, including entry clearance applications, in country leave to remain applications, administrative reviews, appeals/judicial reviews against Home Office refusal decisions, permanent residency and naturalisation applications.

He has vast experience in dealing with corporate clients in setting up overseas businesses in the UK and advise them on business immigration matters with an exceptionally high level of success rate.

Ashok advises clients on judicial review matters challenging Secretary of State’s unlawful decisions, including decision of Revocation of sponsor licence, at the Upper Tribunal and Admin Court division of the Royal Courts of justice (RCJ). He sought interim relief on urgent consideration basis and successfully obtained interim relief for clients. He has experience in instructing junior/senior Counsels and King’s Counsels (KCs) on many notable cases in relation to revocation of sponsor licence by secretary of state for the home department (SSHD).

Ashok handled numerous numbers of complex cases in the Immigration appeal proceedings at the First Tier and Upper Tribunals, Judicial Review claims, both in the Upper Tribunal and the Administrative Court, Court of Appeal and cases in the UK Supreme Court. With significant experience in immigration, he is active in resolving post-conviction removal/deportation cases, bail applications, adult dependent relative appeals, cases under Appendix FM as well as Article 8 of European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), European Economic Area (EEA) appeals for both family and extended family member.

Ashok dealt with injunctive relief and unlawful detention cases. Acted upon short notice to prepare judicial review applications and attended telephone hearings for injunctions to prevent removals and sought interim relief on urgent consideration basis and successfully obtained interim relief for clients.

Ashok was briefly posted to take matters under Legal Services Commission (LSC) contract (publicly funded Legal help/aid) matters to advise clients who were seeking Asylum in Devon and Cornwall area where he assisted clients for the lawfulness of many asylum seekers who claimed Asylum based on their fear of persecution in their country. He had actively worked with Devon and Cornwall Refugee Support (DCRSC), Plymouth & Devon Racial Equality Council (PDREC) and other volunteer organisations in the local area as a team. He always show his empathy and have a better understanding with clients’ issues that allows him to effectively represent them for the best possible outcome of the case.

Sponsor compliance Audit

Ashok advises clients’ business which holds Sponsor Licence and for which he carries out regular compliance audit as well pre-licensing assessments to ensure that the clients’ business remains compliant at all times.

To ensure the duties are being met by complying with all the sponsor duties, Ashok along with is team conducts periodical audit to check whether they are fulfilling record keeping & Recruitment practices, monitoring immigration status, tracking and monitoring, reporting and General sponsor duties, and they are not engaging in behaviour or actions that are considered not conducive to the public good.

He further advises and checks if the necessary systems, policies, practices and procedures are robustly placed in the organisation where the sponsored migrant workers would carry out their employment duties, to ensure compliance. He further checks their system to identify any potential issues and breaches in which he advises them how than can be rectified, and corrective measures can be put in place.

Landlord and Tenant (Residential and Commercial)

Ashok acted for several Landlords and handled complex possession claims in successfully recovered the property through the county court proceedings under Landlord & Tenant Act 1985 and also secured the properties through the Bailiff /Warrant actions.

He also acted for Tenants in defending the possession claims under the grounds of unlawful eviction and succeeded on them.

Insolvency proceedings / Debt recoveries including enforcement proceedings

Ashok represented companies in defending against the Winding-Up proceedings under the Insolvency Act 1986 brought by the creditors. As part of the process, he challenged the validity of service of statutory demand notice by way of filing an injunction at the Court to stay the proceedings and subsequently, initiated effective negotiation and successfully made the proceedings dismissed by the Judge, favouring his client.

Ashok also acted for high net worth clients and brought insolvency proceedings against the debtors before the expiry of the statutory limitation period and successfully recovered the historical debts. He acted for an overseas client against a UK based banking institution and successfully recovered huge debt in the region of £1.5 million.

Intellectual Property Rights

Experience & expertise in protecting clients’ Intellectual Property (IP) rights, filing applications for Source Code registration, Trade Mark (Word, Figurative & combination) within the UK. Ashok represented clients to apply for application for European Community Trade Mark in European Union (CTM) at Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM) and World Intellectual property organisation (WIPO) and thereby enforcing clients’ Intellectual Property rights against the infringement.

Professional body Membership / Accreditations

• Law Society of England & Wales
• Bar Council of Tamil Nadu & Puducherry (India)
• London Solicitors Litigation Association (LSLA)
• Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association (ILPA)
• Society of Asian Lawyers (SAL)
• Association of British Tamil Lawyers (ABTL)
• Human Rights Lawyers Association (HRLA)