Partner
Nick is a founding member of BDM. His clients include many of the largest Japanese ship owners, operators and trading houses and those who insure them. Nick also lived in Hong Kong for many years and is dual qualified as an English and Hong Kong lawyer. He has an extensive network of contacts across Asia and represents clients throughout Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea and Singapore.
Nick’s focus is shipping and trade and he’s one of the few lawyers who can handle both wet and dry aspects of casualties with particular emphasis on collisions, container fires, stow collapses, total losses, groundings, salvage, wreck removal and pollution. He is recommended by a number of the legal directories including Legal 500 and Who’s Who Legal and recent high profile cases include the three ship incident in the Suez canal between the NYK Falcon, NYK Orpheus and Panamax Alexander where he represents the Japanese interests. Over the years he has handled dozens of major shipping incidents most of which are settled amicably.
Nick’s experience also extends to charter party, cargo defence, shipbuilding and sale and purchase contracts. More recently he’s become involved in several large offshore construction disputes for major EPC contractors with claims extending into the hundreds of millions of dollars as well as in connection with high value claims under the ISDA Master Agreement which are presently in LCIA arbitration.
Nick is a member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and the London Maritime Arbitrators Association. He is familiar with most forms of commercial arbitration including LMAA, LCIA, SCC, ICC, HKIAC, SIAC and CIETAC. He also deals with commodity and hedging disputes and has handled cases under GAFTA, FOSFA, LME and RSA rules. Recent cases include several major bulk cargo losses and collisions in Argentina, Egypt and the UAE as well as a freezing order ancillary to a large claim in the Commercial Court.
As well as dealing with disputes, Nick also helps his clients on the non-contentious side. Over the years he has negotiated and drafted charters, consortia/pooling contracts, shipbuilding contracts, sale and purchase agreements and trading contracts. Recently he has been involved in numerous sale and leaseback transactions for Japanese interests. He is regularly instructed by international group P&I Clubs, the Japanese, Norwegian and London hull markets and a number of large shipowners, banks and trading houses.
Nick has received many accolades from clients. In the Legal 500 2023 edition, he was praised for being “unequalled in the industry” and in the 2024 edition clients praised him for his “calm and reassuring presence” and being able to “get some very good outcomes by knowing which buttons to press”.
