James is a Jersey Advocate with more than a decade's experience as a Jersey litigation lawyer, specialising in contentious trusts matters and commercial disputes.
He is a Senior Counsel in Walkers' Jersey Insolvency & Dispute Resolution Practice Group, acting mainly on complex trust and cross-border commercial disputes, including on cases that have gone before the Privy Council.
His commercial litigation experience encompasses disputes involving fraud, asset-tracing and directors' duties.
Having trained with a Magic Circle firm in London, he moved offshore in 2009 and has worked with Walkers Jersey Insolvency & Dispute Resolution team since early 2011.
His recent work highlights include:
Sheyko v Consolidated Minerals Limited – leading a team including associates, barristers and paralegals on a vast ediscovery exercise involving more than 19 million documents in English and Chinese, appearing at the related procedural hearings and liaising with colleagues in Hong Kong in relation to the case.
The Federal Republic of Brazil and other v Durant Corporation and another – James assisted with this case which was determined by the Privy Council and gave rise to a landmark judgment on the availability of backwards tracing.
Walker and others v Egerton-Vernon and others – James was part of the team working on this high value case which involved a breach of trust claim and in which the Royal Court determined the principles of empêchement and prescription in respect of claims brought by a trustee of a Jersey trust.
Dubai Islamic Bank PJSC v Ridley and another – James acted for the Defendant in relation to a tracing claim to recover assets from a Jersey trust and appeared as advocate in relation to a strike out application brought by the Plaintiff in respect of certain aspects of the Defendant's pleaded case. The application raised novel issues of private international law.
Tepe Insaat Sanayii SA v Boru Hatlari lle Petrol Tasima AS and others - This case has produced landmark judgments on the principles of sovereign immunity in respect of State-owned shareholdings and the court's jurisdiction to arrest assets situated outside its jurisdiction in the Royal Court and on appeal to the Court of Appeal and Privy Council.
