Mediation

Experience

Experience

One of Europe’s most experienced commercial mediators and a former corporate lawyer, Bill has mediated full-time since 1991 in a wide range of disputes and conflicts involving parties from right across Europe, Russia/CIS, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Australasia and North America.

View map.

Parties have included national governments, public companies, public bodies/authorities, private companies and firms, pressure groups and individuals from over 50 countries.

His mediations cover a broad cross-section of commercial disputes, ranging up to multi-billion pound in value, and including almost every sector of business and law.

To read about Bill’s extensive commercial mediation experience, please select a category.

See also Bill’s mediation experience in religious and political conflicts.

Art

Examples

  • Disputes concerning the provenance, authenticity and ownership of major art works, including those sold at auction
  • Insurance disputes relating to the art market

Banking

Examples

  • Numerous investment and banking disputes
  • Fraud claims and “dishonest assistance” claims
  • Many mis-selling claims regarding interest rate swaps and other products
  • Contested debt recovery claims

 

Commercial Contracts

Examples

  • $1.25billion pharmaceutical claim
  • Claim concerning Russia commercial agency agreement
  • £120million post-acquisition warranty claim
  • Numerous disputes between telecoms companies
  • Middle East/US/UK pharmaceutical business claim
  • Russian/Norwegian joint venture dispute
  • Polish distribution agreement dispute between US and Belgium companies
  • English/Japanese dispute concerning distribution of luxury brand goods
  • Spanish/Japanese contract termination dispute
  • £2million oil futures dispute between international bank and African state-owned energy utility
  • £35million open-cast mining dispute
  • Dispute concerning construction of Middle Eastern power station
  • £3million claim against UK rail operator by French systems manufacturer
  • Claim by US listed company against North African distributors
  • Claim against French machinery manufacturer by UK companies and finance houses
  • Dispute between a household name food producer and a distributor
  • waste disposal contract disputes
  • Dispute over property development rights
  • Termination of franchise arrangements
  • Claim against national newspaper regarding confidential information

 

Commercial Fraud

Examples

  • Multi-party European-wide €150m tax fraud claims
  • 9-party £2million commercial fraud case
  • £60million international banking fraud claim (4 party)
  • £40million international tax fraud claim
  • US$53million international fraud claim
  • Multi-party and two-party UK fraud claims
  • Multi-national asset-tracing claims

 

Company/shareholders

Examples

  • Numerous shareholders actions (both two party and multi-party) from many different countries, including:
    • Share valuations
    • Share option agreements
    • Minority shareholder (S. 994) actions (two- and multi-party), including multi-million pounds in value
    • “Misleading prospectus” claims (including a 6-party claim)
  • Numerous breach of acquisition warranty claims:
    • Involving listed companies
    • UK, French, Italian, Dutch, Maltese, Austrian, Canadian, Indian, Ukrainian, and others
    • Two- and multi-party
    • Ranging up to multi-million pounds in value
  • Credit-trading disputed equity stake claim
  • Disputed shareholder rights following take-over
  • Numerous family business disputes

Competition

Examples

  • £2bn competition claim in financial services
  • £700m international competition/cartel claim in financial services

Construction and Engineering

Examples

  • Claims relating to delays, defective design issues, engineering machine manufacture, construction of plant, etc
  • Dispute over design and operation of high-tech defence equipment
  • Disputes relating to oil and gas supplies, turbines, piping, undersea equipment, etc

 

 

Employment

Examples

  • Senior executive employment disputes (often coupled with disputed share options/valuations disputes, bonus disputes, S. 994 minority shareholder petitions, restrictive covenants, etc)
  • Unfair and wrongful dismissals including as part of larger claim e.g. as one component of a shareholders’ action, and as part of claims relating to the transfer of businesses including TUPE elements
  • Discrimination covering race, gender and age claims
  • TUPE issues relating to insolvency actions both in employment based and insolvency based mediations
  • Employee departures and confidential information/restrictive covenants

 

Environmental

Examples

  • Major international environmental conflict, involving numerous stakeholders
  • Most recently a two-year dialogue process in Bosnia concerning emission levels, and involving numerous public and private sector parties
  • Clean up costs relating to oil spillage

Insolvency

Examples

  • Numerous claims by and against liquidators/receivers and companies in liquidation/receivership, including misfeasance, transactions at an undervalue, fraudulent preferences, breach of fiduciary duty, etc
  • Example – multi-party Middle East insolvency claims for > $1bn

 

I.T.

Examples

  • £12million claim by listed oil company against its IT suppliers
  • £70million IT claim against a public authority
  • Claim by local authority in respect of automated traffic control system
  • IT contract management disputes
  • IT license claims
  • Numerous other IT-related claims

 

Insurance/reinsurance

Examples

  • £40million international re-insurance fraud dispute (4 party)
  • Division of liability amongst insurers dispute
  • Various reinsurance disputes
  • Insured disaster claims (eg railway disasters)

See also Professional Negligence and Personal Injury (left).

 

Intellectual Property

Examples

  • World-wide trademark dispute between two household name companies
  • “Super-brand” disputes
  • Defamation actions
  • Film copyright dispute
  • Video games disputes
  • Various trademark disputes
  • Passing off actions – eg between household name retailer and branded food manufacturer
  • Design rights dispute between designer and household name transport manufacturer
  • Confidential information claims

 

Investor/State

Examples

  • Environmental and human rights related issues in conflict between inward investors, national regional and local government, NGOs and citizens groups (Balkans)
  • Energy plant issues involving national government and investors (Baltic)
  • Dispute relating to oil-drilling involving government and investors (Caribbean)
  • Oil pipeline dispute involving government and investors (Caribbean)
  • Banking dispute involving government and overseas bank (Central Asia)
  • Financial services dispute between government and European bank (West Africa)

Local Government

Examples

  • Dame Shirley Porter and Westminster City Council (in the public domain)
  • Waste disposal contracts with local authorities
  • Numerous public sector supply contract disputes

 

Medical negligence

Examples

  • The largest single medical negligence claim in UK history
  • Various claims concerning obstetric care, plastic surgery, patient consent, etc
  • See also Personal Injury (left)

 

Partnerships

Examples

  • Numerous disputes concerning break-up of partnerships, removal of partners, etc
  • relating to partnerships of lawyers, accountants, architects, private equity, and many other areas

 

Pensions

Examples

  • Numerous disputes concerning inappropriate administration and use of pension funds, fraud, etc, against former trustees
  • Numerous professional negligence claims against professional advisers, often multi-party
  • “Barber window” equalisation claims
  • S. 75 claims

 

Personal Injury

Examples

  • Hundreds of claims for injury arising out of the Grenfell Tower fire
  • Allocation of liability between defendants for mass tort claims (c. 30,000 claims)
  • Employers liability claims (eg. factory accidents)
  • Diving accident claim

 

Product Liability

Examples

  • Class actions concerning pharmaceutical products
  • Claim concerning alleged contamination of food products

 

Professional Negligence

Examples

Numerous negligence claims (both two- and multi-party) against:

  • Solicitors (relating to “loss of chance” claims, property transactions, vicarious liability, acquisition transactions, etc)
  • Valuers/surveyors
  • Accountants/auditors
  • Insolvency practitioners
  • Company directors and officers
  • Doctors and other healthcare providers

 

Regulatory

Examples

  • Numerous financial services regulatory disputes, often involving enforcement action by the relevant financial regulator
  • Advertising regulatory disputes

 

Shipping

Examples

  • Multi-million pound luxury yacht dispute
  • Various shipping claims

 

Sport

Examples

  • Dispute between motor racing driver and his sponsors
  • Directors and shareholders dispute in ocean racing enterprise
  • Long-running multi-party dispute over board and shareholder control of a Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club (multi-party) (in the public domain)
  • Dispute between directors of football club (multi-party)
  • Dispute between football club and sacked manager
  • Dispute between motor racing champion and racetrack company
  • Coventry City FC dispute over Ricoh Arena (in the public domain)
  • Inter-club and governing body rugby dispute
  • Dispute between shareholders of global sports ticketing and events business

 

Business Sectors

  • Agency
  • Agriculture
  • Banking
  • Corporate acquisitions
  • Charities
  • Commercial contracts
  • Commercial fraud
  • Company valuations
  • Construction/engineering
  • Defamation
  • Education
  • Equities/forex/trading
  • Franchise
  • Employment
  • Health
  • IT and telecommunications
  • Intellectual property
  • Insolvency
  • Insurance and reinsurance
  • International trade/commodities
  • Investor/State
  • Media/entertainment
  • Mining/extraction
  • National and local government
  • Partnership
  • Oil and gas/energy
  • Personal injury/clinical negligence
  • Professional negligence
  • Passing off
  • Pharmaceuticals
  • Transport/infrastructure
  • Travel
  • Property/planning/environment
  • Pension funds
  • Regulatory
  • Shareholder/company law/joint ventures
  • Shipping
  • Sport
  • Waste management/environmental

International Commercial Mediations

Bill has an extensive international commercial practice. See this map for more details.

Bill has mediated disputes with parties in and from:   UK, Ireland, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Greece, Romania, Estonia, Lithuania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Poland, Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Japan, China, USA, Canada, Australia, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

Recent examples have included:

  • Investor/State mediation in CEE
  • Investor/State mediation in the Baltic
  • Israel/Ukraine/Netherlands/Sweden post-acquisition claim
  • Germany/Balkans agency claim
  • UK/Swiss fraud claim
  • CIS/South African banking dispute
  • India/France JV dispute
  • Numerous claims involving US parties
  • Canadian/UK shareholders dispute
  • Belarus/US shareholders dispute
  • Russian JV dispute, Russian agency dispute, and other Russian-based claims
  • Middle East banking claim, involving a range of Gulf States
  • Eastern European government dispute
  • US/West African/European oil disputes
  • Italy/USA engineering disputes
  • China/Italy contract claim
  • UK/Scandinavia IP dispute
  • US/Swedish Banking dispute
  • Middle Eastern construction dispute
  • US/UK oil production dispute
  • China/Australia/Greece/UK shipping dispute
  • Ukrainian banking/shareholders dispute
  • Caribbean/African/US/Germany shareholders dispute
  • Israeli/UK/Australian insurance dispute
  • France/UK agriculture dispute
  • Balkans/UK media dispute