Peter Taaffe FCA CTA

Professional background

Peter trained and qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Deloitte Haskins & Sells (now PricewaterhouseCoopers) in their London office.  He worked on multinational audits before transferring to their Liverpool office taxation department, later joining Ernst & Young to become a senior tax manager. He qualified as an associate member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation.

Peter was Chairman of the Liverpool Younger Members Group of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales for five years and was later Treasurer of the Institute’s Liverpool Society.

He joined Bresnan Walsh as an equity partner in December 1991. Having built the firm up from six staff to 22 staff working in various departments, he merged with Macfarlane + Co to form and lead BWMacfarlane LLP from 1 February 2011 with a team of nearly 50 staff.

Peter has acted as an accountancy expert to the Courts since the mid 1990s and has written articles on forensic accountancy issues for publication in various legal journals, and has given talks on the subject to various groups and bodies.

Relevant experience

Peter has acted and given evidence in Court on cases reflecting a wide range of different civil and criminal matters, instructed by both claimants and defendants and, in recent years, also often acting as a single joint expert.

He has experience in:

• Personal injury
• Professional negligence, particularly involving solicitors and accountants
• Contested divorces
• Commercial disputes
• Business valuations
• Fraud

His experience in acting in those assignments is supported by his years running BWMacfarlane LLP (formerly Bresnan Walsh) and his responsibility for delivery of the services provided by a busy and successful accountancy practice, including:

• Audit – wide variety of audit experience, including management of audit assignments from family businesses to large public organisations.
• Taxation – advising on tax planning assignments for example for wealthy individuals, group tax planning and reorganisations, VAT planning from family businesses to large public organisations.
• General financial and business support to a wide range of businesses.

Litigation Expert Qualifications

Peter is qualified as an accredited expert witness under the Cardiff University Bond Solon Expert Witness Scheme www.bondsolon.com.

“I have worked with Peter on a number of cases as have colleagues in the department.  Most, if not all, of the cases we have worked on together have been asbestos disease cases requiring a high level of care and attention.  Peter has always prioritised matters as is necessary with these cases.  Peter has also attended a number of conferences with our clients.  These conferences are often difficult as the discussion centres on sensitive issues regarding clients’ health and lack of capacity to work.  Peter always balances dealing with the facts of the matter in a professional way with being sympathetic to our client’s position. The financial dependency reports prepared are always thorough and easy to follow.  Peter is always on hand to answer any queries with a friendly and professional manner.”    

“I have known and instructed Peter Taaffe over may years.  He is unfailingly professional and always delivers what is asked.  We recently instructed him in a case where we needed a report at very short notice having been let down by an expert who had offered to produce a quick fixed fee report on a discrete point.  BWM understood exactly what we wanted and provided a comprehensive report in a short timescale within the agreed fee.  The report referred to the web-site of the business concerned which in part contradicted its pleaded case. The report was available in time to be disclosed for a round table meeting at which we were able to negotiate a fair and sensible settlement.”