Michael Howard KC

Commercial Lawyer & Arbitrator at Quadrant Chambers

Speaker

Leader of the Admiralty Bar (2000 – date)

Michael is a commercial lawyer who specialises principally in maritime law, covering all areas of that discipline, both wet and dry and acting as adviser, as advocate and as arbitrator. He also acts as an expert witness on English law before foreign tribunals.

He advises and acts as advocate in domestic and international commercial disputes, in particular in disputes concerning sale contracts, agency agreements, insurance and re-insurance matters, supply and distributorship agreements, technical disputes (usually concerned with ship construction or with quantification of damages), maritime contracts (charterparties, bills of lading, COAs, marine policies etc) and marine casualties (including wreck removal and salvage). He also drafts contracts and contractual terms.

He also frequently acts as arbitrator in shipping and other commercial cases. His first appointment was in 1983, since when he has been appointed several hundred times by parties, arbitrators or arbitral bodies as arbitrator, either sole or as one of a panel (in the latter case usually, but not invariably, as umpire or chairman of arbitral tribunal).

He has been appointed as an ICC arbitrator and an LCIA arbitrator. He is a member of the LCIA Company, a member of the Singapore Chamber of Maritime Arbitration and a supporting member of the L.M.A.A. He was a member of the Panel of Salvage Arbitrators appointed by the Council of Lloyd's from 1989 to 2009.

He has been an ADR accredited mediator since 2004.

He has acted on a number of occasions as an expert witness on English law. He has given written expert evidence of English law in a variety of foreign jurisdictions, including Belgium, China, Greece, Norway, Louisiana and Alabama, and has given oral expert evidence in Norway and in Texas.