Litigation & International Arbitration

ALLEN & OVERY

Lewis Whitehurst and Alex Sparrow, Lawyers

Litigation is a key practice group for Allen & Overy in Perth, along with the Corporate, Energy & Resources and Banking & Finance. Whilst “Litigation” by name, the team works on matters involving all forms of dispute resolution from domestic court litigation to international arbitrations. The Perth team specialises in large-scale, cross-border disputes involving parties from multiple jurisdictions, and leverages the A&O global network of offices. We frequently work on matters with colleagues across APAC, Europe, US and the Middle East. Dispute Resolution is often considered the practice area that is most comparable to university subjects. This is because our matters generally involve gathering and analysing facts, before applying legal arguments in order to advise and prepare a compelling case for your client. At face value, this is similar to a problem solving exercise in an exam or assignment. However, the actual day-to-day running of these matters brings the added complexity of strategy, commerciality and the unpredictability of opposing parties. Clients frequently engage the Perth Litigation team in the early stages of a disputes timeline to provide strategic advice. Given clients’ agreements frequently contain multi-layered contractual dispute resolution processes involving a myriad of foreign investors, principal contractors, subcontractors and government stakeholders, we may end up working through negotiations, expert adjudication, Dispute Adjudication Board proceedings, through to full arbitration or litigation proceedings. In terms of litigation, we work on matters in the WA Courts involving mining, construction, oil & gas and insurance disputes. We have also recently been involved in court proceedings in NSW, where the relevant agreement contained a choice of jurisdiction clause in favour of NSW Courts. We work with our colleagues in other offices to enforce foreign arbitral awards or commence anti-suit injunction proceedings in Australian Courts. For example, we recently worked on an enforcement application with our colleagues in Madrid and Hong Kong. The Perth team works on international arbitrations under a variety of institutional rules, which are often seated in London, Paris, Singapore and Hong Kong. This includes arbitrations between private companies, as well as Investor State disputes between foreign investors and the country where their investment was located. In this area, we have recently acted on a number of disputes arising out of renewables projects, including solar, wind and hydropower facilities, based both domestically and across South East Asia. These projects provide an interesting and growing area of work, where the outcomes not only affect the dispute but also prove a base of information and roadmap to potential issues for these types of projects acted on by our transactional teams. A&O’s Litigation practice group includes employment, regulatory, investigations and white-collar crime matters. In these cases, we have assisted offices including; New York, Hong Kong, Belfast Advanced Delivery and London to work on the significant amount of sensitive evidence these cases accrue. Whilst WA may have rather effectively isolated itself from the world for the past two years, through this time, we have still been able to work with our other offices on a substantial portion of our matters. With travel being restricted, this has meant many Teams calls and emails, but with the border restrictions being relaxed, we have had a number of people returning to overseas travel. These trips can be short stints for hearings and case-management conferences or longer trips with recent secondments to our London and Singapore offices. This has supplemented the existing local and international client secondments we have provided. The team in Perth also regularly acts on both local and international pro bono projects, which provides an excellent variety from our more regular work. This is a great opportunity to get involved in running a matter at the junior level. Common tasks can include research for global humanitarian organisations in preparation for strategic litigation and lobbying activities, drafting case summaries across various jurisdictions on migration and refugee issues, and working on local disputes and projects referred from Law Access.