Commercial Dispute Resolution: An Introduction

• Author: Ian R. C. Kawaley/Karen Skiffington
• Pages: 247-252

PART III

COMMERCIAL DISPUTE RESOLUTION

Chapter 11 Commercial Dispute Resolution: An Introduction

Geoffrey R Bell 249 Chapter 12 Specialist Commercial Courts and the Development of Offshore

Commercial Law

Ian RC Kawaley 253 Chapter 13 Commercial Litigation in Bermuda

Narinder K Hargun and Alex Potts 265 Chapter 14 Trust Litigation in Bermuda

David R Kessaram 279 Chapter 15 Receivers and the Rights of Secured Creditors under Bermuda

Law

Andrew Martin 297 Chapter 16 Commercial Arbitration in Bermuda

Jeffrey Elkinson 327 Chapter 17 Winding up Companies under Bermuda Insolvency Law

Jennifer Fraser and Claudia Jackson 367 Chapter 18 Restructuring Insolvent Companies in Bermuda

CHAPTER 11

COMMERCIAL DISPUTE RESOLUTION: AN INTRODUCTION

Geoffrey R Bell

Litigious beginnings 249 London silks and the development of the local commercial litigation Bar 250 Summary 252

LITIGIOUS BEGINNINGS

11.1 I joined the firm of Appleby Spurling & Kempe in April 1974, having been hired to continue the practice of David Brewster, an English barrister who had been a partner at the firm, but had chosen to return to England. Within weeks, I was on my first business trip, to consult with English leading counsel, Kenneth Rokison QC, in a substantial shipping case, where the firm’s client was the Bermuda subsidiary of a major North American multinational, whose enterprises included a fleet of cargo vessels. In this case, the cargo had been lost, and it transpired when a preliminary investigation was undertaken that the vessel had been travelling a winter route when loaded to its summer marks, something which would inevitably become known to the other side when discovery took place. That was the first of many cases in which the clients of the firm were subsidiaries of or affiliated to Fortune 500 companies, and the amount at stake meant that the client was concerned to secure the best legal advice available, without too great a regard for its cost.

11.2 In those days (and the position is very little different today) that meant instructing a London silk, and over the next three decades it was my good fortune to work with many of the very top London barristers of the day. Early on, the firm

250 Offshore Commercial Law in Bermuda

formed a relationship with Gavin Lightman QC, who demonstrated an extraordinarily wide range of talent for a Chancery silk. He acted for Private Eye in its appeal against an award of libel damages granted to Sonia Sutcliffe, the wife of the Yorkshire Ripper, and...