Seb Bisley Email & Phone Number

Wellington, Wellington Region, New Zealand

Civil litigation, arbitration, mediation

Wellington

A member of Buddle Findlay's litigation and insolvency teams, with particular expertise in commercial litigation, insurance law and public law.Instructions of note include acting for a local council in relation to a substantial construction dispute; advising on insurance issues relating to a $2 billion property insurance portfolio; and advising a substantial fund on claims arising from a construction project valued at over $50 million.

While at Russell McVeagh, I worked in the commercial litigation team.Instructions of note included acting in a $30 million insurance claim under a professional indemnity policy; appearing as lead counsel in the Court of Appeal, in relation to the assignment of causes of action; and advising on significant insurance issues arising out of the Canterbury earthquakes.

Our team moved from Gherson to Brown Rudnick, where Neil was appointed as the head of litigation in the London office. While there, I continued to practice complex commercial litigation. My practice included financial litigation (including claims against financial advisers and banks), representing bond-holders in contested re-structurings, cross-border insolvency, cross-border fraud, and professional negligence claims.Instructions of note included advising a major pension fund, with €7b under management, in relation to potential claims for breach of/negligent performance of a fiduciary management agreement against a leading investment bank; acting for the defendants to a claim by MF Global UK Ltd, an investment bank, for debts said to be owed pursuant to contracts for difference; and advising ad hoc groups of bond-holders on corporate bond re-structurings in Artumas Group Inc, Polarcus and Marine Accurate Well ASA.

I moved to Gherson with Neil Micklethwaite, formerly the head of litigation at Bingham McCutchen, to start a boutique firm focusing on complex commercial litigation. While at Gherson I acted in a number of significant human rights cases emerging from Russia; on claims against financial institutions, most particularly relating to the mis-use or mis-selling of complex financial instruments, such as CFDs; on several high-profile regulatory investigations; and on a wide range of other matters in the Commercial Court.Instructions of note included acting in a high profile Russian human rights case before the European Court of Human Rights; representing the majority shareholder in a multi-jurisdictional shareholder dispute in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Moscow and Austria in relation to what, at the time, was the largest construction project in Moscow, with an estimated worth of US$500m; assisting an investment fund that in 2007 controlled over US$400m in largely Russian assets in managing its response in several jurisdictions to fraud committed against it in Russia; and acting for the ex-directors of a well-known English group of companies on an investigation under the Companies Act into their role in the group’s insolvency.

I worked in the litigation team at Brown Rudnick, with Neil Micklethwaite, the head of litigation. Instructions of note included representing FAZ Aviation, an international broker, in a $125m fraud dispute over the purchase of an aircraft for the Islamic Republic of Iran from the Sultan of Brunei, and assisting FAZ Aviation to challenge the jurisdiction of the English courts in a claim brought by the Islamic Republic of Iran; acting in a claim for the conversion of art valued at in excess of £12m; and acting in a shareholder dispute concerning the wrongful transfer of call option rights (valued at approximately US$250m) arising from the proposed merger then IPO of two major Russian aluminium producing companies, Rusal and SUAL, and a Swiss natural resources group, Glencore International AG.

Llm (Dist), Competition Law Of The Eu

LLM (Dist).

Llb (Hons), Law

LLB (Hons), BA

Ba, Politics