Sara specialises in all areas of commercial law. She has a particular interest in jurisdictional disputes, including jurisdictional issues arising in arbitration, and conflicts of laws problems, she also has extensive experience in insurance and reinsurance, sale of goods, shipping and commodities, construction, energy and European Union law.
She has appeared in the High Court, the Court of Appeal, the House of Lords, and the Privy Council and before the European Court of Justice. She also appears frequently before arbitrators in a broad range of disputes both in the UK and abroad. She is a CEDR accredited mediator.
Listed as a Leading Junior for Shipping and Commodities in Chambers and Partners (UK Guide 2011) where she is described as "persuasive and possessed of a great ability for presentation", she is also recommended in the Legal 500 (2010) for Commercial Litigation, Commodities and International Arbitration. She was named by The Lawyer magazine as one of the "Hot 100" for 2009.
She is instructed for the insurers in The Front Comor, an important case before the ECJ on the compatibility with EU law of anti-suit injunctions to enforce arbitration clauses, in which the ECJ ruled that an anti-suit injunction granted restraining the Insurers from proceeding before the Italian Courts was incompatible with EU law.
She is also involved in advising on a number of disputes arising out of the "credit crunch". These have included the effect of the recent banking crisis on:
- Shipbuilding contracts and ship sales;
- Charterparties and bills of lading including withdrawals and termination of charterparties, contracts of affreightment, collection of unpaid freight or hire and the exercise of rights of lien;
- International sales of goods including the cancellation of contracts, disputes over title to goods, cargoes afloat unsold and hedging disputes.
- Sales contracts subject to the Vienna (UN) Convention on the International Sale of Goods.
Her recent work in this area has also involved advice on jurisdictional points arising, injunctions and also the provision of English law advice in relation to proceedings in the US and in South Korea.
