Dispute Resolution Team of the Year

This award recognises the very best contentious lawyers in the country. From courtroom litigators to the finest arbitrators, the individuals and teams shortlisted will have shown, in one exceptional piece of work, the tenacity, initiative and skill that ensures clients remain one step ahead of their opponents.

Previous Winners:

With settlement finally reached in the summer of 2010, eight years after first receiving instructions, Herbert Smith wins all the plaudits for the gargantuan effort required to win this epic and long-awaited case.

When IT supplier EDS failed to deliver a new customer relationship management system in 2000, BSkyB had to finish the job itself at an overall cost of about £265m. The broadcaster then sought the help of Greeno’s team in a claim to recover its outlay, subject to a potentially costly snag: the contract contained a cap limiting EDS’s liability for damages to a maximum of £30m.

The trial began in 2007 and lasted nearly a full court year. But 18 months later, a 468-page judgment found EDS liable for deceit, negligent misrepresentation and breach of contract, with the court accepting Herbert Smith’s submissions that the £30m cap was insufficient to cover the extent of its client’s losses. EDS eventually agreed to pay £318m in settlement of damages, interest and costs – a complete victory for the client.

HIGHLY COMMENDED

Freshfields bruckhaus deringer

Alex Mitchell; Patrick Swain

The Freshfields team found itself in the middle of one of the most-publicised takeover battles in recent years, when New England Sports Ventures bought Liverpool Football Club at the end of 2010. Mitchell and Swain successfully represented The Royal Bank of Scotland in a series of injunctions that were critical to the success of this heated and extremely high-profile deal.

Jones Day

Sion Richards

In this, the second-stage of the epic Langbar fraud case, Richards led a team that, following an unprecedented six-day strikeout application, managed to obtain summary judgment on Langbar’s claim for fraudulent misrepresentation. Jones Day again demonstrated its considerable skill in handling major fraud disputes by going on to win freezing injunctions and delivery up orders for its client.

mcGrigors

Findlay Anderson; Katharine Davies

Drawing on its combined strengths in dispute resolution and energy, the McGrigors team successfully argued before the High Court that its client, Dutch energy company Nuon, was justified in refusing to complete its €105m purchase of a portfolio of North Sea gas assets from Venture Production.

Osborne Clarke

Peter Clough; James Mullock

In a landmark case, Osborne Clarke advised 19 of the UK’s 22 water companies on a successful Information Tribunal case that addressed a fundamental commercial issue about data usage and took water companies outside the scope of freedom of information laws. The team defeated the assumption that water companies have to respond to information requests under the Environmental Information Regulations.

Slaughter and may

Efstathios Michael

Michael represented Liverpool Football Club in a high-stakes game of injunction tennis in the UK and US courts, which allowed the club to be wrestled from the grip of its previous owners during one frenetic week in October. The Slaughter and May team had to respond decisively and under extreme time pressure to ensure the deal closed, all in the intense glare of unprecedented media attention.

Travers Smith

Stephen Paget-Brown

Following a five-week trial, Paget-Brown led the team that successfully represented RBS in its defence of a complex £10m fraudulent misrepresentation claim brought by Austrian bank Raiffeisen Zentralbank Österreich in an Enron-related case that was keenly watched by the banking industry.