Anna Greenley

• Recommendations

  "Anna is calm, pragmatic and confident. She is able to cut through complex issues and make them appear simple. She has a very pleasant manner and is easy to work with." - Employment, Chambers UK 2025

  "Anna delivers excellent concise advice and truly understands our business and needs as a client." - Employment, Chambers UK 2025

  "I feel entirely reassured when Anna is enlisted to support us and our clients." - Employment, Chambers UK 2025

  "A junior who stands out for her analytical skills, her tenacity, proactivity, work ethic and ability to win over clients, judges and instructing solicitors. She is highly persuasive." - Employment, legal 500 2025

  ‘‘Anna is clear, concise and confident in her advocacy, and we really value her responsiveness and understanding of her clients' businesses.’’- Chambers UK Bar 2024

  ‘‘Anna is technically excellent but also user friendly and commercial in front of clients’’ - Employment, Chambers UK Bar 2024

  ‘‘A very experienced junior with a good work ethic. She is a skillful cross-examiner.’’ - Employment, Legal 500 2024

  ‘‘Anna has an incredible grasp of the law and always provides advice of the highest standard. Anna's advocacy skills are particularly impressive, as she is able to communicate her arguments succinctly and eloquently, resulting in positive outcomes’’ - Employment, Legal 500 2023

  ‘‘We trust Anna’s judgement implicitly and can rely on her to advise on whether an issue is worth pursuing and she always considers the longer-term strategy. We deploy Anna in all of our employment matters due to the quality of her advocacy and communication skills. She is always meticulously prepared, has good structure and ensures that the litigation flows’’ - In-house Counsel, major luxury retailer

Expertise

• Employment

  Anna has a substantial employment and partnership law practice, appearing at all stages of proceedings in the tribunal, EAT and civil courts. She is an excellent strategist and tactician, and her prior experience as a director and senior leader across a range of industries means that she can quickly understand the context and commercial realities within which her clients operate. 

  Recent reported and noteworthy cases include: 

  • British Airways plc v Rollett and others [2025] ICR 242, EAT – indirect discrimination – same disadvantage 
  • Nicol v World Travel and Tourism Council and others [2024] ICR 893, EAT – whistleblowing – knowledge of disclosure 
  • Ridley v HB Kirtley (trading as Queen’s Court Business Centre); Kostrova v McDermott International Inc and another; Taylor v Lloyds Pharmacy Ltd [2025] ICR 441, CA – correct approach to discretion to extend time 
  • Birmingham Bin Strike – injunction - News item here.

  Anna's practice spans the full range of employment work and partnership work including whistleblowing (including applications for interim relief), equal pay, TUPE, breach of contract, remuneration (particularly in respect of senior executives), discrimination and business protection. 

  Regularly instructed to advise on business protection matters, Anna can quickly advise on the first steps that need to be taken to secure her client’s interests and then advise on the right strategy to take to secure interim and final relief, as appropriate, in the courts. Recent instructions have included confidential information (seeking injunctive relief, document orders and breach of contract actions), team moves and restrictive covenants/competitive activity. 

  A significant part of Anna’s practice is advising on matters relating to executive remuneration and she has experience of both bringing and defending bonus and wrongful dismissal cases in the High Court and related unfair prejudice issues. 

  She is also regularly asked to advise on a range of partnership disputes including expulsion, disciplinary and can draw on her prior professional experience to provide pragmatic and commercial advice that safeguards the relationship wherever possible. 

  Anna has significant experience of conducting investigations with recent experience in the financial services, energy, hospitality, healthcare, defence and FMCG sectors. She is particularly sought after for sensitive conduct allegations against senior executives and allegations of fraud. Drawing upon her prior experience within the financial services sector, Anna regularly conducts regulatory investigations or those employment investigations with a regulatory angle. 

  She can also advise on the personal injury aspects of employment disputes including choice of forum and the merits of bringing a claim in the civil courts and the detailed assessment of costs in both the civil courts and tribunal. 

  She is a member of ELBA and ELA and a member of the ELA City Regulation Standing Committee. 

• Commercial Litigation and Disputes

  Anna has a busy commercial litigation practice which covers the full range of disputes including breach of contract, civil fraud, injunctive relief, and insurance/reinsurance. In advising her clients, she can draw upon her extensive advisory background as a corporate and commercial strategy consultant and regulatory experience working for a major hedge fund, to find practical and pragmatic solutions. Her clients particularly value her strategic approach and ability to distil complex arguments into cogent submissions. 

  She is currently junior to Andrew Burns KC in a high value civil fraud/professional negligence claim against a firm of trade mark attorneys in respect of the transfer of business rights. 

  Anna also has an extensive practice spanning the crossover between employment and commercial law including in relation to business protection, unfair prejudice petitions and breach of contract. 

  Other recent instructions include a range of High Court breach of contract claims in relation to the supply of goods and services, applications for injunctive relief and an action brought under Part XXV of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. 

  Further details of her insurance practice appear under that heading but current instructions include High Court litigation in respect of COVID-19/business interruption matters and advising on a range of coverage issues, aggregation, and avoidance cases. 

  Anna is a member of COMBAR, BILA, the International Forum of Senior Executive Advisors and Association of Partnership Practitioners. 

• Professional Negligence

  Anna accepts instructions in professional negligence matters with a focus on claims brought against solicitors and barristers. 

  Recent instructions include: 

  • Acting for the claimant in respect of a claim in the High Court against counsel and solicitors for the under- settlement of employment tribunal proceedings. 
  • Junior to Andrew Burns KC in a high value civil fraud/professional negligence claim against a firm of patent attorneys/solicitors in respect of the transfer of business rights. 
  • Advising a financial services institution on a professional negligence claim against its solicitors in respect of a commercial property transaction. 
  • Acting against a firm of solicitors in respect of the lost opportunity to litigate a high value discrimination claim. 

  Anna is a member of the Professional Negligence Bar Association. 

• Regulatory & Professional Discipline

  Drawing upon her background in financial services, Anna advises across the full range of conduct and remuneration issues including those related to Brexit, the SMCR and regulatory references. Further, her extensive employment practice allows her to work seamlessly across both disciplines and she regularly advises on matters relating to professional conduct and discipline including providing representation at tribunal hearings. 

  Anna regularly carries out investigations for regulated firms and her experience working in the industry allows her to quickly grasp not only the technical issues involved but the wider context of the operating environment. 

  Recent work includes advising a major hedge fund on the regulatory implications of bringing its European branch employees onto the UK payroll, an action under Part XXV of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and conducting a regulatory investigation into the General Manager of a major credit union. 

  She is a member of the ELA City Regulation Standing Committee. 

• Investigations

  Anna has considerable experience of conducting both employment and regulatory investigations with particular experience in the financial and professional services sectors. 

  Having advised Boards and Ministers in her former career, she understands the importance of an organised, thorough, and practical approach and her significant experience prior to practising at the Bar enables her to quickly understand the organisational context particularly at a senior executive level. 

  Recent instructions include: 

  • Allegations of sexual misconduct against a senior executive. 
  • The investigation of a senior individual subject to the SMCR who raised issues of whistleblowing and discrimination following their dismissal. 
  • A regulatory investigation into the conduct a former CEO of a financial services firm. 
  • An investigation into allegations of misconduct against a senior investment professional. 
  • Junior to Bruce Carr KC in the Carr Review of the Royal College of Nursing. 

  Anna is a member of the ELA City Regulation Standing Committee. 

• Insurance & Reinsurance

  Anna has a busy insurance and reinsurance practice acting for both parties across all industry sectors. She has particular experience of issues relating to the duty of fair presentation and aggregation. 

  She is currently instructed in several COVID-19/business interruption insurance matters. 

  Other recent cases include a complex advisory matter concerning a legal expenses policy, a professional negligence claim against a chartered accountant and litigation associated with a high-value insurance claim following a fatal accident at work. 

  She is a contributing author for Lexi PSL Insurance and a member of BILA. 

• Education

  Anna has particular experience of breach of contract and discrimination matters in an education context having acted for a number of higher education providers and colleges in both the Employment Tribunal and civil courts. 

  For example, she was recently successful at trial in resisting a claim against a University for a failure to make reasonable adjustments during its admissions procedure and in a breach of contract claim against another University, the Claimant having discontinued proceedings after her pleaded defence was served. 

  She is currently instructed in a pregnancy discrimination case against an Academy and in a race discrimination case against a university, both in the Employment Tribunal. 

Latest from Anna

• News

  • Bruce Carr KC and Anna Greenley successful in obtaining interim injunction in relation to the Birmingham “bin strike”
  • Court of Appeal reviews correct approach to the EAT’s discretion to extend time to lodge an appeal
  • 11 Devereux Members featured in inaugural Pro Bono Recognition List
  • Anna Greenley appears in important EAT Whistleblowing Appeal
  • Anna Greenley acts on behalf of the Government Legal Department in judicial review proceedings.

• Articles

  • Returning to work - a right to refuse?
  • Retention of staff during the COVID-19 outbreak