Charlotte Armstrong

Charlotte is a senior associate solicitor assisting Sarah Moore in the group claims department.

Charlotte undertook her training contract at the firm from 2016 to 2018. Prior to joining Leigh Day, Charlotte graduated from the University of Manchester with a First Class degree in English Literature gaining two awards as the highest-ranked student. She then went on to complete her GDL and LPC at the University of Law in Leeds, obtaining a Distinction in both of these courses. Following her undergraduate degree, Charlotte spent time working for a human rights organisation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Charlotte specialises in large multiparty group actions on behalf of claimants based in the UK and overseas across a wide range of issues including environmental pollution and product liability claims.

Legal expertise

Charlotte has worked on the following cases:

• Andre Bravo v Amerisur Resources Plc. A claim on behalf of 171 members of remote communities living in southern Colombia in Putumayo, near the Ecuadorian border. The claims arose from an incident in 2015 when members of an illegal armed group forced tanker drivers, employed by a third party, transporting oil partially owned by Amerisur to discharge the tanker contents onto local wetlands and contaminating the local environment. In January 2020, Leigh Day successfully obtained an interim freezing injunction which required Amerisur to preserve £3million of its UK assets. Following a successful preliminary issues trial in the High Court on behalf of the claimants, Amerisur Resources settled the claims with no admission of liability.
• Kabwe & Others v Anglo American South Africa Limited.A class action lawsuit filed on behalf of a class estimated to comprise more than 100,000 individuals in the Kabwe District of Zambia who are believed to have been poisoned by lead. The application is brought by 13 representative plaintiffs on behalf of children under 18, and girls and women who have been or may become pregnant in the future. The lawsuit is against Anglo American South Africa Limited, a subsidiary of London-headquartered multinational mining company Anglo American Plc.
• Antuzis & others v DJ Houghton Catching Services & others. A modern-slavery claim on behalf of 16 Lithuanians who were put to work in terrible conditions by a British company, catching chickens at farms all over the country. In February 2019, a landmark judgment regarding the liability of company directors for breaches of contract was handed down in the claimants’ favour. The judgment has wider significance for all officers of companies, given that it highlights that they may be personally liable to pay damages if they cause their company to operate in breach of contractual and regulatory requirements, particularly if such breaches seriously harm the reputation or financial viability of their company.