Tom is a Board Member and partner in the commercial disputes team dealing with complex high value matters.
His experience includes domestic and international litigation/arbitration/expert determination arising from the whole suite of upstream agreements including AMIs, JOAs, UUOAs, PSCs, SPAs/FOAs, commodity sales agreements, service contracts, supply agreements and decommissioning agreements.
Tom's experience covers the full value chain of the upstream project cycle. In addition he has extensive experience in providing pre-issue advice, dispute avoidance advice and litigation analysis and planning.
Experience
Examples of experience include:
- Advising an upstream oil and gas company in relation to charterparty disputes and the impact of a breach of a “time of the essence” clause on its drilling operations, a multi million pound dispute brought to swift and successful resolution
- Advising on contractual obligations under a Compression, Transportation and Processing Services agreement relating to a gas field in the North Sea
- Advising an upstream oil company in a $60+ million per annum hydrocarbon dispute
- Advising on a dispute regarding a potential breach of an Area of Mutual Interest Agreement for joint participation in a bid for acreage in the 25th United Kingdom Continental Shelf Licensing Round
- Advising an oil and gas exploration and production company on the purchase/conversion and charter of a floating production unit (including a production vessel and storage vessel) to be installed and operated offshore which will receive, process, store and offload crude oil
- Advising a gas company that had chartered an ocean-going tug which experienced an engine room fire
- We successfully enabled our client to terminate the charter and re-charter an alternative vessel resulting in huge savings to them
- Advising Statoil regarding a disputed pipeline crossing for the Langeled Pipeline (the largest infrastructure project in the North Sea)
- Providing the litigation and risk management perspective on a BTC pipeline gas supply contract
- An ICC arbitration acting for a Super Major regarding the rights to physically take and sell gas from joint gas fields in Argentina. The dispute arose as our client had historically taken more than its participating interest share. The claimant claimed a payment of US$40 million and sought an order that a gas balancing agreement providing monthly cash payments for future gas imbalances be imposed upon the parties. This was an important case as the award would regulate the rights and obligations of the parties to take their share of gas production for the remaining 20 years + life of the gas fields
- An NoC, entered into a JV with a now privatised NoC to produce gas from various offshore gas fields. Dramatic falls in gas prices in Europe resulted in our client being unable to fully recover its investment from the gas sales. We assisted our client in triggering the price review mechanisms under the various agreements to revise the gas price formulas. The relevant agreements were subject to Croatian and English law and provided for LCIA and UNCITRAL arbitration in London and Vienna
- Tripartite North Sea FPSO charging dispute (£100m +) regarding the allocation of costs between neighbouring field representatives
- Onshore shale drilling rig claim for spread costs.
"A serious litigator with an excellent reputation."
Chambers and Partners
"He just gets it. He is very commercially aware and understands the practical reality of the situation. He's very technical but makes it very simple and is always very responsive."
Chambers and Partners 2020
"Very sensible, commercial and down to earth."
"He is extremely capable and makes complex disputes sound simple."
Chambers and Partners 2021
