Herbert Smith Freehills has promoted nine Disputes lawyers to its partnership out of a total of 32 worldwide. The promotions in the Disputes practice, which take effect on 1 May 2023, span across the firm’s international network.
Of these new partners, three are arbitration specialists, reflecting the strength and importance of the practice area to the firm.
The new arbitration partners are:
Hannah Ambrose, London
Hannah’s practice includes acting as counsel and advocate in both commercial and investment treaty arbitrations. She has experience in ad hoc commercial arbitrations and proceedings under the auspices of major arbitral institutions across a broad range of sectors (including energy, pharma, financial services, and shareholder and JV disputes), on arbitration-related court applications and on commercial settlement of high value and complex disputes. She has represented investors and states in investment treaty claims and also advises on a range of other matters of public international law, including state immunity and immunity of international organisations.
Hannah is a member of the steering committee for HSF’s pro bono international development project, Fair Deal Sierra Leone. Her work as part of this project has included delivering capacity building training on arbitration to the judiciary and private practitioners in Freetown, providing legislative drafting support to the Sierra Leone Law Reform Commission, and supporting Sierra Leone with its accession to the New York Convention.
Catrice Gayer, Düsseldorf
Catrice has been advising and representing clients in domestic and international arbitrations (e.g. ICC, DIS, SIAC, SCAI) and litigations for more than a decade. She is particularly renowned and experienced in implementing cost-efficient strategies and handling voluminous and technically complex cross-border cases. These cases involve large-scale projects in plant construction, technology products as well as mechanical engineering. Her industry expertise comprises sectors such as infrastructure, transport, manufacturing/industrials, TMT and energy. Further, she regularly acts in post-M&A as well as commercial and corporate disputes. She also regularly sits as arbitrator. She has been co-chair of ASAb40 (Swiss Arbitration Association) since 2020 and has been promoted to counsel in 2021.
Charlie Morgan, London
Charlie has broad experience helping clients to resolve complex commercial disputes in the energy and technology sectors.
Charlie is an arbitration specialist, acting as counsel and advocate in ad hoc and institutional arbitrations across a wide range of jurisdictions. His experience includes resolving contractual and non-contractual disputes arising from clients’ high value, strategic projects and transactions in energy, digital transformation and emerging technologies. He has acted for clients in disputes arising from shareholder and joint venture claims, investor-state contracts and treaty protections, VC investments, outsourcing projects, software development and purchase agreements, crypto and digital asset transactions, data migration and cloud computing.
Paula Hodges KC comments: “I am delighted to welcome our three new partners, Hannah, Charlie and Catrice. They are all hugely talented arbitration practitioners, and their breadth of knowledge and experience across the energy, pharma, construction, technology and financial services sectors will enhance the services we provide to our clients worldwide. I congratulate each of them on this tremendous achievement and wish them all the very best for the next chapter of their careers at Herbert Smith Freehills.”
