Region Area

Barristers

SanMari Martins

Position

SanMari enjoys diverse practice with particular focus upon commercial and regulatory disputes.

She is regularly instructed to advise on and represent clients in relation to a range of commercial, property and housing, planning and licencing disputes - including matters related to the interpretation and performance of contracts, the title to and ownership of property, and to both the duties owed by property owners and managers and proceedings for possession of property.

SanMari has extensive experience of heavy litigation and complex disputes, both domestic and international. She has a busy court practice, she receives instructions to appear in trials, and has experience of handling both lay and expert witnesses. She also appears in appeals, CMCs and interlocutory hearings.

She is instructed in the High Court and County Court. SanMari has also acted in arbitration claims under a range of procedural rules.

Career

SanMari came to the Bar as mature student from a commercial background which affords her the ability to provide clients with an innovative and commercial service. Her practice covers a broad range of commercial and chancery litigation at all stages of litigation.

SanMari can advise on tactics and procedure before a contract is terminated. She can provide advice and assistance in progressing claims, assessing and presenting claims for damages, and resolving disputes without litigation. The areas of her commercial practice include, Business contracts, Consumer contracts, Sale of goods (domestic and international), Supply of services and particularly insurance contracts.

SanMari regularly receives instructions from both insurers and the insured in litigation, mediation of policy liability and quantum disputes, including: • Disputed policy coverage on all types of policies (e.g. EL, PL, products liability, composite commercial, property, goods in transit, professional indemnity, payment protection, legal expenses) • Defending or advancing claims involving material damage – fire, flood and subsidence; and liability – occupiers’ liability, employers’, professionals’, property owners’, motor, product • Fraud • Professional negligence claims involving insurance professionals (e.g. brokers, loss adjusters, loss assessors) • Subrogated recovery actions by insurers against third parties.

SanMari has a keen interest and is well-versed in marketing and advertising law.

In 2014 she contracted her time out to a new-law based business. She has had hands-on involvement with the development of an animated advertisement which was featured on national television.

Her legal project management experience includes, the delivery of advertising production specific legal advice (data protection, online publication, copyright, regulation of the media, negligent misstatement) and contract drafting.

SanMari has a particular interest in Local Authority Enforcement where it overlaps with the Housing Act. She is also regularly instructed to advise as to litigation tactics and evidence. She has been instructed in a number of cases involving Local Authorities enforcing housing regulations against landlords.

In 2017 SanMari represented the West Lindsey District Council in the prosecution of four landlords under a selective licensing scheme at the Magistrates Court at Lincoln. Collectively all four landlord incurred fines totalling £213,000 for 15 Offences to comply with selective licensing – to date, believed to be the highest fine in the England and Wales.