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Michal Hain

Michal Hain

Twenty Essex, London

Position

Michal’s broad commercial practice is evenly split between English courts and international arbitral tribunals. He acts in general commercial cases with an emphasis on complex multi-jurisdictional litigation. Michal is also experienced in specialised areas, including investor-state disputes, insurance, and insolvency.

In the legal directories, he is described as “superbly gifted and a pleasure to work with”.

Michal is increasingly instructed to act as sole counsel, including in a one-week, high-value Commercial Court trial (Albion v Heritage and another [2022] EWHC 162 (Comm). He also frequently works in larger teams, not least in appellate cases, where he draws on his experiences as a Judicial Assistant to Lord Reed, then Deputy President, and now President of the Supreme Court.

He was recently instructed in two Supreme Court appeals: The CMA CGM LIBRA [2021] UKSC 51 about the proper construction of the Hague Rules and SAS v WPL regarding the jurisdiction of the English court to prevent, by injunction, the enforcement of a foreign judgment that was inconsistent with a prior domestic judgment and inconsistent with domestic public policy (in which the appeal settled).

As a Judicial Assistant at the UKSC in 2018-19, Michal worked on a number of leading commercial cases, including Vedanta [2019] UKSC 20 (jurisdiction in the context of a parent company’s liability for a subsidiary’s torts), Poole BC v GN [2019] UKSC 25 (assumption of responsibility in tort law), and Marex [2020] UKSC 31 (reflective loss rule in company law).

Prior to joining chambers, Michal taught contract and tort law at various Oxford colleges and, whilst at Harvard Law School, worked as a mediator in the Harvard Law School Mediation Programme, as a Student Attorney in the Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project, and as a Judicial Intern in the Massachusetts Superior Court.

As a native German and Slovak speaker, Michal can work with original documents in German, Slovak and Czech.

https://www.twentyessex.com/people/michal-hain/

Languages

German (native); Slovak (native); French (conversational)

Mentions

London Bar

Commodities

Rising star1
Michal Hain – Twenty Essex ‘Michal is friendly, responsive and has a good understanding of the factual background behind a claim.’
London Bar

Shipping

Rising star1
Michal Hain –Twenty Essex