Manolete Welcomes a New Chapter with Mena Halton as our new Chief Executive

Manolete Partners Plc has entered a new chapter in its story.

On 11 August, the company announced that Mena Halton, previously Managing Director and long-standing Board Member, has been appointed as Chief Executive.

This change follows the decision of Steven Cooklin, Manolete’s founder and CEO since 2009, to step down from the Board. Steven has played a defining role in founding the business and shaping the company (Including a successful floatation on AIM in 2018), and his vision and leadership leaves a lasting legacy and strong platform for success.

Mena brings a wealth of experience to the role. A solicitor since 1984, she joined Manolete in 2014 and has been a driving force in the company’s growth. She has been recognised in the Chambers and Partners Litigation Support Guide as a Band One leader in insolvency litigation funding for the years 2022-25.

Reflecting on her new role, Mena said: "Having worked closely with Steven for the past 11 years, I feel honoured to take on the role of Chief Executive. Steven will be greatly missed, but I look forward to building on everything we have achieved together as a team. What matters most is continuing to support Insolvency Practitioners and their chosen law firms so they can deliver the best possible outcomes for insolvent estates."

Mena also highlighted the strength of the Manolete team, including its network of 17 in-house lawyers: "Our focus remains unchanged. We will keep working collaboratively with our partners to maximise realisations on insolvency claims. To date, we have returned more than £73m to insolvent estates, and with over 400 live cases, we’re as committed and busy as ever."

With Mena at the helm, Manolete moves forward with continuity, experience, and a shared sense of purpose - building on strong foundations and looking confidently to the future.

Stephen Baister Writes... on Finding the Facts

“Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them.” So said Thomas Gradgrind in Dickens’s Hard Times.

Lawyers like the law and want to talk about it; and judges do too. But in most legal cases, especially when they come to trial, the facts are the main thing. Only once they have been established can you go on to apply the law to them with a view to getting the resolution to the matters in issue between the parties.

It is a shame then, as Lord Bingham noted in The Business of Judging, that “the judicial determination of factual issues occupies a somewhat lowly place, an activity of its nature ephemeral, uncreative and particular;” although he goes on to say, “To the judge, resolution of factual issues is (I think) frequently more difficult and more exacting than the deciding of pure points of law.”

He goes on to discuss the fact finding process at some length, concluding: “When I have done my best to separate the true from the false [by applying the principles he has discussed], I say which story seems to me the more probable, the plaintiff’s or the defendant’s, and if I cannot say which, I decide the case, as the law requires me to do, in the defendant’s favour.”

A couple of years ago, Dexter Dias KC, then sitting as a deputy High Court Judge, set out what he called “Thirteen axioms of fact-finding” in a case called Briggs v Drylined Homes Ltd [2023] EWHC 382 (KB), a claim by the widow of a Mr Brian Briggs, who died in 2017 after contracting mesothelioma. They are worth reading.

The facts will often decide the outcome of a case. There is a distinct advantage to the winning party when that is so, because, as we all know, appealing a judge’s factual findings is much more difficulty than appealing on the law. Lewison LJ explained why in Fage UK Ltd v Chobani UK Ltd [2014] EWCA Civ 5 and Volpi v Volpi [2022] EWCA Civ 464.

So, where possible get a judgment on the facts rather than the law, I say. Mr Gradgrind was right.

Stephen Baister
Board Director

SESCA 2025 Insolvency Conference
11-12 September

Manolete is delighted to be sponsoring the SESCA Conference at the Henley Business School (University of Reading) on 11 and 12 September. The conference flyer is available to download here.

The conference is an established feature of the insolvency CPD calendar. It aims to provide IPs and their senior staff with practical updates on a broad range of topical subjects.

Delegates will receive comprehensive documentation on arrival. The conference drinks reception and dinner are a great opportunity to relax, meet old colleagues and make new connections.

Don’t miss Manolete Associate Director, Neil Stewart, speaking on 'Desperate Defences' on Day 1 at 10.05.

Click here to make your booking.

Location
Henley Business School
Greenlands, Henley-on-Thames
RG9 3AU