Russell Williamson

I'm a senior associate in our Dispute Resolution Group in London. I specialise in advising clients on complex commercial disputes, particularly in the technology, retail and consumer, energy, financial services and automotive sectors.

My practice involves acting in international and domestic litigation, arbitration and alternative dispute resolution (including mediation) across a variety of industry sectors. I have extensive experience of advising clients on high-value and complex disputes relating to commercial contracts and corporate relationships (both in the public and private sectors), together with associated risk management and jurisdictional issues. As most of the disputes that we work on have an international element, our group adopts an integrated approach with our teams across Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific. In particular, we aim to help clients by providing advice and assessing risk on potential disputes at an early stage.

As a member of our Product Compliance & Liability group, I also have expertise in assisting global organisations with the mitigation of legal and regulatory risks that arise when a product safety or hazard issue arises in the marketplace, including matters of product liability, recall, contractual protections, insurance policy coverage and dealing with enforcement regulators. Recently, these issues have become prevalent in the field of disruptive and autonomous technologies, including driverless vehicles and artificial intelligence.

• Advised and acted for a leading global technology and consumer electronics company in relation to two business-critical worldwide recalls of defective computer products (in over 40 jurisdictions within the EMEA region).
• Acted for a global defence and systems integration company on disputes arising out of the termination of a series of contracts concerning the delivery of a sophisticated IT system to certain UK emergency services.
• Advised a multinational technology company on the legal risks and liabilities it would face from the manufacture and supply of autonomous products (including for driverless cars) to an OEM.
• Advised a leading automotive safety supplier in relation to a worldwide recall of defective seatbelts.
• Advised a global telecommunications company in relation to a UK recall of wireless router products with defective electrics.

• Acted for an international supplier and technology licensor in a US$34 million breach of contract and negligence claim concerning specialised dehydrogenation technology used at a petrochemical plant in Saudi Arabia (Starr Managing Agents Ltd and others -v- (1) UOP Ltd (2) UOP LLC [CL-2016-00390).
• Acted for the operator of Europe's largest cloud services network in a procurement dispute with a water services provider concerning a tender for the provision of IT services.
• Acted for a global investment bank in a US$850 million claim arising out of a loan for a major Portuguese bank that was rescued by the Portuguese central bank.
• Acted for one of the world's leading bunker brokerages in a multi-party litigation (and arbitration) concerning the quality of marine fuel oil delivered to the 'Marine Prosperity' vessel in Singapore (Bunge, SA -v- Wilhelmsen Marine Fuels AS -v- ExxonMobil Marine Ltd [2013 Folio 1087].
• Acted for a Swedish state pension fund in a US$35 million claim against a US multnational bank arising out of the acquisition of notes issued by a structured investment vehicle (Sigma) as part of a securities lending programme (Forsta Ap-fonden -v- Bank of New York Mellon & Ors [2013] EWHC 3127 (Comm)).