Matthew Garbutt

Partner

Areas of Expertise

Matthew is a Partner in our Litigation & Dispute Resolution team, enjoying a broad practice in civil and criminal disputes.

Matthew’s clients include companies, charities, Registered Providers, facilities managers, public sector service providers, and high net worth individuals. He works to untangle complex contractual disputes, including PFI and other public sector contracts, advising on termination, loss mitigation and contract management. More generally, Matthew acts in director and shareholder disputes, professional negligence, trust disputes, judicial review (including pensions), defamation, harassment, and debt recovery.

Matthew is heavily involved in complex cases concerning fraud and regularly undertakes internal investigations that lead to urgent interim relief applications such as freezing injunctions, and civil recoveries. Such work involves an element of reputation management and communications with stakeholders, regulators and insurers.

In the criminal sphere, Matthew advises on current offences, but also has a specialism in advising on historic serious criminal offences, from which he has also gained extensive experience advising vulnerable witnesses and parties to historic inquests and other actions concerning the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Matthew also heads up the contentious side of the firm’s Financial Services Regulation Team, working alongside colleagues in our Banking, Governance & Corporate teams to provide clients with seamless advice on navigating compliance issues with the FCA and other regulators.

Matthew undertakes appropriate cases on crowdfunding arrangements to support difficult cases where classical funding options are hard to obtain.

Experience

Prior to joining Devonshires, Matthew read law at the University of Sheffield and took the LPC, his post graduate law qualification, at Sheffield Law School.

Publications

Clock ticking on the failure to prevent fraud offence

Change ahead in UK AML supervision

2024 Regulator of Social Housing Sector Risk Profile: fraud and Anti-Money Laundering (AML)

Freezing injunction threshold test becomes crystal clear

Beyond Byers

AI – where do we go from here?

Don’t overlook the Civil Justice Council’s Pre-Action Protocols Consultation this Christmas

Last minute offers under Part 36 and the effect of trial adjournment

Res judicata and abuse of process challenges involving third parties

Supreme Court weights in on fraud tainted negligence claims

Directories

Legal 500 (2024) – Commercial Litigation

Legal 500 (2024) – Debt Recovery

Conferences

Matthew frequently holds seminars and webinars on various topics including commercial dispute resolution, mediation, fraud, anti-money laundering, financial regulation and defamation.

In February 2025 he spoke at Devonshires’ Fraud in Housing Conference on the upcoming failure to prevent fraud offence, and he will be a panellist at the Fraud Advisory Panel’s upcoming Fraud Conference in April 2025.

Education

Matthew read Law and completed his LPC at the University of Sheffield.

Personal

Matthew has a busy family life outside the law, enjoying travel, music and an interest in classic cars.

News Articles

Professional Membership

Testimonials