Christian Panayi > 4-5 Gray's Inn Square > London, England > Barrister Profile

Christian Panayi

Position

Christian’s practice spans commercial and chancery work with expertise in contractual disputes, property & housing, media & intellectual property, commercial debt recovery, insolvency, and consumer credit.

He regularly appears in the County Court and High Court in trials, appeals, injunctions, judicial review hearings, winding-up petitions and interlocutory applications. He has also appeared in the First Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) and the First Tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber).

Christian’s expertise comprises contentious and non-contentious commercial work, with particular application to the digital media / IT sector.

Career

His experience includes an extended secondment as in-house Counsel for cyber security software specialist, McAfee during 2018. Managing the UK and South Africa regions, Christian provided commercial contract drafting and negotiation on major client accounts across McAfee’s enterprise, consumer and public sector channels.

Prior to joining Chambers, Christian worked at specialist commercial, media and IP firm Hansel Henson LLP. During this time, he developed experience in commercial litigation, media contract drafting (including merchandising agreements, licence agreements and data protection policies), trade mark searches and registrations, and drafting undertakings relating to IP infringement (including trade mark and copyright infringement, passing off and a Protected Designation of Origin).

Christian also brings substantial industry and commercial experience having come to the Bar following a career in the digital media industry. Over a ten-year period, Christian helped large and small brands to realise their business and communications objectives through creative branding, media-marketing and technology solutions. He developed his role from project management to consultancy and divisional management, working for some of the leading players in the digital space, including the WPP Group.

Throughout his industry career, Christian regularly addressed legally-related issues in  a commercial context, including negotiating terms of business, developing supplier/partnership agreements and service level agreements, software and media licensing, online data protection, and brand/trade mark protection in the digital space. He is able to combine legal knowledge and industry experience to deliver commercially practical legal advice to clients.

Christian’s experience also includes commercial fraud work, having worked as review counsel for the Serious Fraud Office on major investigations.

Christian is accredited to accept instructions from clients directly.

Education

2009 Bar Vocational Course (Very Competent), College of Law

2008 Graduate Diploma in Law (Distinction), College of Law

1997 MA Media Studies & Multimedia, University of Sussex

1996 BA (Hons) History, University College London