Clare Ambrose

MA, LLM, FCIArb

Areas of expertise

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Clare Ambrose has been in practice since 1993 at 20 Essex Street specialising in international and domestic commercial matters. This includes shipping, arbitration, oil and gas, commodities, banking, insurance, reinsurance and professional negligence. She has appeared before the High Court, Court of Appeal and arbitral tribunals including LMAA, LCIA, ICC and UNCITRAL tribunals. She has extensive experience as an arbitrator, including appointments by the LCIA, DIFC-LCIA, ICC and on LMAA Terms. She has very frequently been appointed as arbitrator in commodities, shipping and shipbuilding disputes. However, appointments have been broad ranging, including disputes relating to professional negligence, music promotion and share sale agreements. In 2007 she was appointed Deputy District Judge and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, and in 2008 Junior Counsel to the Crown (B Panel). The 3rd edition of her book, London Maritime Arbitration, was published in 2009.

She has been consistently recommended as a commodities practitioner by Legal 500 and Legal Experts. Her extensive experience in shipping includes numerous disputes under charterparties, bills of lading, and shipbuilding contracts. She has acted in several insurance and reinsurance cases heard in the High Court. Banking experience includes several disputes involving international letter of credit fraud. She is currently instructed by HMRC in a number of large claims relating to VAT fraud.

Specialisations: 

  • Banking
  • Insurance and reinsurance
  • Professional negligence
  • Shipping
  • Commodities
  • Oil and Gas
  • Carriage of Goods
  • Arbitration
  • Revenue

Principal Cases: 

Arbitration

Koch Shipping Co v Richards Butler [2002] 2 All ER (Comm) 957 (solicitors' duties of confidentiality, conflict of interest);

Fletamentos Maritimos v Effjohn [1997] 2 Lloyd's Rep 302 (arbitrators and bias);

The Voltaz [1997] 1 Lloyd's Rep 35 (arbitration clauses and time bars).

Banking

Czarnikow-Rionda Sugar Trading Inc v Standard Bank London [1999] 2 Lloyd's Rep 187 (letters of Credit, pre-trial injunction).

Charities

Attorney General v Trustees of the British Museum [2005] Ch 397 (power of British Museum to make restitution on moral grounds).

Commodities

Louis Dreyfus Trading v Reliance Trading [2004] 2 Lloyd's Rep 243 (Sale of Goods, damages);

Bem Dis a Turk Ticaret v International Agri Trade Co Ltd [1998] 1 Lloyd's Rep 416 (sale of goods, GAFTA default clause).

Conflict of Laws

Bouygues Offshore SA v Caspian Shipping Co (No.2) and (No.3) [1997] 2 Lloyd's Rep 485 and [1997] 2 Lloyd's Rep 493, [1998] 2 Lloyd's Rep.461 (anti-suit injunctions, jurisdiction clauses and himalaya clauses, service of third party notices out of the jurisdiction);

Ultisol Transport Co v Bouygues Offshore SA (No.1) and (No.5) [1996] 2 Lloyd's Rep 140 and [1997 2 Lloyd's Rep 533, (anti-suit injunctions, jurisdiction clauses).

Shipping/Admiralty

Glencore Grain Ltd v Flacker Shipping Inc, The Mass Glory [2002] 2 Lloyd's Rep 144 (voyage charter, commencement of laytime);

Whistler v Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd,The Hill Harmony [1998] 2 Lloyd's Rep 367 (employment and navigation of a ship under time charterparties);

The Yuta Bondarovskaya [1998] 2 Lloyd's Rep. 357 (time charterers' authority to contract on behalf of owners).

Education and Career: 

Following school Clare spent a year at the Université François Rabelais in Tours, becoming fluent in French. She went on to obtain a first class degree in Jurisprudence at Oxford (Somerville College, scholar) and also a first class LLM at Cambridge (Queens' College, Foundation scholar) before being called to the Bar in 1992.

Publications: 

London Maritime Arbitration (3rd Edition, Informa, 2009, co-written with Karen Maxwell and Angharad Parry).

Articles include:

  • "Arbitration Review 2008" LMCLQ Maritime and Commercial Law Yearbook 2009
  • "Arbitration Review 2007" LMCLQ Maritime and Commercial Law Yearbook 2008
  • "Force Majeure in International Contracts" [2003] Business Law International 234
  • "Can Anti-suit Injunctions Survive European Community Law" [2003] 52 ICLQ 401
  • "Arbitration and the Free Movement of Judgments" [2003] vol 19 Arbitration International 3
  • "When can a third party enforce an arbitration clause?" [2001] JBL 415.
  • "English Arbitration Law 2000" [2001] LMCLQ 476
  • "Arbitration and the Human Rights Act" [2000] LMCLQ 468 Hedley on Coal Charterparties - contributed footnote 74 on page 79.

Appointments and Society Memberships: 

  • Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators
  • LMAA Supporting Member
  • LCLCBA
  • COMBAR
  • Co-founder of the LCIA Young International Arbitration Group.

Lectures and Teaching: 

Between 1999 and 2002 she was senior tutor in law at Somerville College in Oxford and lectured in International Trade for the Law Faculty of Oxford University. She continued to give lectures for Oxford University until 2005. In 2002 she was a visiting fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, when she published articles on anti-suit injunctions and the application of European Community jurisdictional rules to arbitration. Clare now frequently gives talks and seminars, mainly in the area of arbitration.

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