Michael Ryan > Chambers of Gavin Kealey KC > London, England > Barrister Profile

7 King’s Bench Walk is ‘a very strong commercial set‘. Although particularly well known for its insurance and shipping credentials, the set’s members are also consistently mandated for other heavyweight commercial litigation. In Premia Reinsurance Ltd v Amtrust International Insurance, Ltd, David Edwards KC acts for Premia Reinsurance in an approximately £20m claim regarding its purchase of the legacy business of a number of Lloyd’s syndicates run by another insurer. In the AerCap litigation, over fifty members of chambers (including Gavin Kealey  and Clara Benn for AIG, and Richard Waller KC and Michael Ryan for Lloyd’s) are instructed in Commercial Court claims brought by aircraft lessors against their insurance companies and concern the Russian government’s banning of Western aircraft from leaving Russia, effectively expropriating them, after its invasion of Ukraine.

7 King’s Bench Walk remains a ‘go-to set’ for international arbitration across a wide range of sectors spanning international business and commerce, aviation, shipping and logistics, and most notably insurance and reinsurance related arbitration across multiple jurisdictions. Ongoing arbitrations range from high-value pharmaceuticals arbitrations, contractual construction disputes, including the ongoing UNCITRAL arbitration where David Allen KC is instructed to act on behalf of a local insurance company in a dispute arising out of an alleged well-out-of-control incident. Jonathan Gaisman KC, James Brocklebank KC and Michael Ryan are instructed in a major dispute between two Russian oligarchs and their technology companies in connection with sanctions while David Edwards KC successfully defended a Bermudian insurer against a $200m insurance claim arising out of the settlement of an underlying product liability litigation. On the senior end, Noel Casey KC was appointed Silk in March 2023, boosting the set at the senior end.