7 King's Bench Walk

Fred is a commercial barrister specialising in complex, high-value commercial litigation and arbitration. His broad practice has a particular focus on insurance and reinsurance, civil fraud, energy, shipping and commodities, international trade and professional negligence. He is used to appearing on his own as well as working as part of large multi-counsel teams. Fred has been recognised by The Legal 500 2023 as a ‘Rising Star’ (Tier 1) in relation to both Commercial Litigation and Civil Fraud.

To give a flavour of his recent work, Fred is currently instructed in the largest piece of insurance litigation in the market (namely the ‘Russian Aviation’ litigation), due to be heard by the Commercial Court in late 2024; a billion-dollar s.67 arbitration appeal relating to a gas supply contract, heard by the Court of Appeal in mid 2023; two high-value arbitrations concerning, respectively, political risk and political violence insurance; two sets of related proceedings in arbitration and in the Admiralty Court relating to the ‘Maersk Honam’ casualty (the largest containership general average loss in history); and a c.€50 million dispute concerning the breach of an oil supply contract, in which Fred acts alone against an established silk. He is currently instructed alone against silks in three separate actions (the latter case, plus an aviation dispute and a shipping dispute).

Fred is frequently instructed in cases involving allegations of dishonesty, corruption and other serious misconduct. He is developing a reputation as being highly experienced in this area: recent led work has included a number of multi-million-dollar fraud actions, two of which resulted in lengthy commercial court trials, as well as a $1 billion worldwide freezing order case (with an associated jurisdictional challenge).

Fred is used to acting in international arbitrations, both ad hoc and under a variety of rules (including LCIA, ICC, SCC, LMAA, GAFTA and FOSFA) as well as in court in aid of arbitral proceedings and concerning the enforcement, challenge or appeal of arbitration awards.

Fred is delighted to accept instructions in any type of commercial dispute, whether alone or being led.