John Leonard Knox
# John Leonard Knox

Sir John Leonard Knox (6 August 1925 – 28 May 2015) was a British High Court judge, sitting in the Chancery division.

He was appointed on 26 July 1985, and retired on 30 September 1996. Whilst sitting he was styled as Mr Justice Knox or Knox J.

Prior to his elevation to the bench, Sir John practised as a barrister from what is now termed Radcliffe Chambers.

He was Attorney-General of the Duchy of Lancaster from 1984 to 1986.

## Notable cases

Notable judicial decisions that Knox J was involved in included:

* Smith v Croft (No 2) [1988] Ch 114 relating to derivative claims.
* Re Produce Marketing Consortium Ltd (No 2) [1989] 5 BCC 569 relating to wrongful trading.
* Re New Bullas Trading Ltd [1994] 1 BCLC 485 at first instance, relating to floating charges. Knox J's decision at first instance was reversed by the Court of Appeal, but that decision was later overruled by the House of Lords in Re Spectrum Plus Ltd [2005] UKHL 41, effectively validating Knox J's original decision.
* Re MC Bacon Ltd (No 1) [1990] BCLC 324 at the preliminary strike-out stage, relating to wrongful trading and unfair preferences.
* Re Curtain Dream plc [1990] BCLC 925 in relation to recharacterisation.

## Offices

| Preceded bySir Richard Scott | Attorney-General of the Duchy of Lancaster 1989 - 1991 | Succeeded bySir Donald Rattee |
| - | - | - |

## Arms

Coat of arms of John Leonard Knox :

* MottoMoveo Et Proficior

## Footnotes

* ↑ "John Leonard Knox". Companychecker.co.uk. Retrieved 22 June 2017.
* ↑ "Sir John Leonard Knox". Retrieved 22 June 2017.
* ↑ "Sir John Knox". Peerage news. Retrieved 22 June 2017.
* ↑ "History of Radcliffe Chambers". Archived from the original on 6 March 2016. Retrieved 22 June 2017.
* ↑ "Lincoln's Inn Great Hall, Ed33 Knox, J". Baz Manning. Retrieved 19 December 2020.
