Conor joined Quadrant Chambers in October 2024, following the successful completion of his pupillage and will be accepting instructions across Chambers’ core areas, including commercial litigation, shipping, insurance, banking, and commodities.
Before pupillage, Conor was a paralegal at Floyd Zadkovich, an international commercial law firm specialising in arbitration, shipping and commodities.
Conor graduated with a first-class undergraduate degree in History from Bristol University and a Distinction in the MPhil in Modern British History from Jesus College, Cambridge. Conor then achieved Distinctions in the GDL and the Bar Course at City Law School.
International Arbitration
- Assisting with an advice on the application of the requirement under section 5 of the Arbitration Act 1996 that an arbitration agreement must be “in writing” in circumstances where the parties envisaged that a bill of lading would be issued but never was.
- Assisting with an advice concerning whether a notice of arbitration was validly served in a foreign jurisdiction on a defendant in circumstances where the defendant’s offices were closed.
- Assisting with an advice on the application of the exemption for the “necessary” transportation of agricultural and food products under EU sanctions regulations.
- Assisting with drafting an advice on the principle in Henderson v Henderson (1843) 3 Hare 100, 67 ER 313 and its application to circumstances where a party has submitted simultaneous arbitration references.
- Assisting with an advice on the circumstances in which costs in one arbitration can be recovered as damages in another arbitration.
- Assisting with an advice concerning the repudiatory breach of a long-term contract for the supply of axels for heavy goods vehicles.
- Assisting with an advice on whether seven different supply contracts had validly incorporated an arbitration agreement contained in a set of general terms and conditions concluded previously between the parties.
- Assisting on whether the “prevention principle” – where a claimant will not be entitled to rely on its counterpart’s breach if the breach has been caused by the claimant – requires the claimant to have been in breach of contract or merely requires a preventative act on the part of the claimant.
Shipping
- Assisting on an ad hoc arbitration concerning the implication of a term into a payment clause in a charterparty to nominate an acceptable bank to receive hire.
- Assisting with a skeleton argument for a preliminary issues hearing regarding the proper construction of the Worldwide Yachting Association (MYBA) Sale Form in respect of an allegedly defective super yacht.
- Assisting with an advice on the merits of an off-hire and performance claim under an amended NYPE form.
- Assisting with an advice on the merits of a shipowner’s claim under the Inter-Club New York Produce Exchange Agreement 1996 following a container collapse during a storm.
- Assisting with a defence and an advice on the merits of a detention claim and the scope of “liner out” terms.
- Assisting with an advice concerning a damages claim resulting from a vessel being redelivered with off-specification bunkers.
- Assisting with drafting opening submissions for a 3-day arbitration concerning non-payment for allegedly off-specification bunkers.
- Assisting with an advice concerning whether a vessel was lawfully redelivered in circumstances where the holds were cleaned but not to a “grain clean standard”.
- Assisting with an advice on the merits of an off-hire claim following the alleged breakdown of a gangway between an accommodation vessel and an LNG production unit.
Commodities & International Trade
- Assisting with claim submissions under a FOSFA 57 contract in respect of a buyer’s failure to take delivery of large quantities of rapeseed oil.
- Assisting with drafting a mediation position paper in respect of whether, on its true construction, a contract for the sale of oil contained a warranty as to the quality of the oil.