Most engagements end in settlement. We build every one of them for the courtroom, the tribunal, or the enforcement proceeding it would otherwise reach, because that is what sets the number it settles at.
We build cases for trial from the first week, in the courts where the exposure actually sits. We act as lead counsel rather than as local agent, and the lawyer who takes the case at the outset is the lawyer who argues it.
Contract, fraud, and fiduciary duty claims large enough to be worth trying rather than trading.
Class and opt-out claims, controller transactions, and board conduct, including in the Delaware Court of Chancery.
Warranty, indemnity, and completion accounts disputes, usually against the party that drafted the agreement.
Derivatives, securitisation, and lender liability claims turning on documentation.
Records preserved for appeal from the pleadings onward, and appeals taken over from trial counsel.
We act in institutional and ad hoc arbitration under every major set of rules, and in the annulment, recognition, and enforcement proceedings that follow. Most of our arbitration work continues after the award is issued.
ICC, LCIA, SCC, and UNCITRAL proceedings seated across Europe, the Gulf, and Asia.
Treaty claims against states and state entities, including expropriation and fair treatment claims.
Production sharing, offtake, price review, and joint operating agreement arbitration.
Coverage and treaty disputes for policyholders, insurers, and reinsurers.
Winning is half of it. We employ our own forensic accountants and tracing investigators rather than retaining them when we need them, and we open enforcement in several jurisdictions at once so that assets cannot be moved ahead of us.
Tracing, disclosure, and restraint of assets moved through corporate and trust structures.
Recognition under the New York Convention and domestic regimes, including attachment of state assets.
Freezing relief, search orders, and receiverships obtained on short notice.
Structuring, deployment, and defence of funded and assigned claims.
We are instructed when an authority has opened a file, when a board needs an independent account of what happened, or when both are true at once. Most of this work never becomes public, and that is usually the point of it.
Internal investigations, self-reporting decisions, and defence of individuals and entities.
Designations, licensing, and contractual consequences across overlapping regimes.
Simultaneous management of proceedings, authorities, counterparties, and disclosure.
We accept a limited number of new instructions each year, and we run conflicts before any substantive discussion. Please do not send us confidential information until we have confirmed in writing that we can act.