Overview
Dominic has a very strong commercial law background having joined Maitland Chambers in 2002, and before that having practised at leading commercial chambers in the Temple.
He specialises in international and domestic commercial and Chancery litigation and arbitration, with particular emphasis on banking, insolvency, company law (in particular shareholder and directors’ disputes and corporate reorganisations), civil fraud, heavy contractual disputes, asset tracing, private international law and conflict of laws, energy law, restitution, partnership disputes, agency, entertainment law, and insurance/reinsurance. Dominic appears regularly in the Commercial Court, the Chancery Division and the appellate courts, both in the UK and overseas.
Dominic also specialises in handling cases concerning corruption in projects financed by International Financing Institutions (IFIs) and International Development Agencies (IDAs), and he has considerable experience in dealing with the relevant departments of, and individuals at, the leading IFIs and IDAs (including the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank) in relation to corruption and other financial irregularities, including their respective sanctions regimes. He has an extensive international banking practice.
He works for most of the major City law firms, and also for international firms (mainly from the USA, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, the Channel Islands and other offshore jurisdictions). He is called to the Bar of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (Virgin Islands), and to the Bar of the Isle of Man (ad hoc). Dominic is also registered to practise with full rights of audience in the Courts of the Dubai International Financial Centre.
Dominic also appeared for one of the two successful Claimants in the Supreme Court in the landmark Article 50 Brexit litigation in 2018 which is generally regarded as one of the most important legal cases ever to have been heard by the English Courts. The Supreme Court sat for the first and only time to date en banc, with 11 Justices hearing the case.
Dominic has for many years been recommended as a leading practitioner in the fields of Commercial Dispute Resolution, banking, off-shore and professional negligence in the Chambers UK Bar Guide and The Legal 500. He is a member of COMBAR and of the London Court of International Arbitration, and appears in arbitrations both as counsel and as arbitrator. Dominic also specialises in ICSID arbitrations and acts for both States and investors.
Current and recent cases include acting for international trusts in a large tracing claim by Russian claimants, acting for claimants in interest rate swaps litigation against various banks; acting for shareholders in a major dispute with directors in two well-known multi-national corporations, acting for a well-known script writer in dispute with a broadcasting company in relation to commissioning production agreements; acting for clients being investigated by the SFO; acting for the claimant in a US Arbitration concerning breaches of a Licensing and Representation Agreement concerning software and television streaming rights; acting for an Estonian bank in a multi-million dollar dispute with a Russian bank; acting for directors accused of breach of fiduciary and statutory duties in the Middle East, advising a syndicate of banks in relation to a multi-billion dollar Eurobond dispute, and advising offshore companies in relation to disputes in connection with reinsurance treaties.
Terms of Business
The clerks are happy to discuss the basis on which Dominic will act in any given matter. In the absence of express written agreement otherwise, the terms under which Dominic accepts instructions are The Standard Contractual Terms for the Supply of Legal Services By Barristers to Authorised Persons 2020 (as updated from time to time) referred to in the BSB Handbook.