Litigation, Dispute Resolution and Investigations

Our disputes practice is market-leading. We have wide-ranging experience in all types of commercial and corporate disputes, including those arising from commercial agreements and operations, the financial markets, mergers and acquisitions, share dealings and other corporate and banking transactions. We also assist clients to prevent disputes before they occur.

We have expertise in all forms of alternative dispute resolution, including arbitrations, mediations, conciliations and expert determinations. Our international arbitration team acts for clients in high-value, multi-party and complex cross-jurisdictional arbitrations for clients in every business sector.

We have wide-ranging experience in dealing with investigations and have played a significant role in many of the most important regulatory investigations and statutory inquiries in Ireland in recent years.

We also have a dedicated team, Legal Tech and Innovations Services, to deal with discovery, document review and data management, now a major aspect of all litigation, disputes and investigations, in order to effectively manage the costs and client time involved.

Relevant Experience

• Advising Banco Santander and Optimal Investment Services on all issues relating to the fraud perpetrated by Bernard Madoff Securities LLC including the defence of proceedings brought by SPV OSUS Ltd seeking circa US$3bn in damages.
• Acting for BNY Mellon in its defence of two separate professional negligence claims, each for circa €400m, brought by the liquidators of collapsed Cayman hedge funds.
• Advising financial institutions in respect of the Central Bank of Ireland’s (CBI’s) industry-wide tracker mortgages investigation and in respect of numerous other investigations brought by the CBI, including the first CBI investigation brought under the 2012 Consumer Protection Code.
• Acting for Ryanair in Commercial Court proceedings it has issued against the operators of various flight comparison websites for alleged screen-scraping and breach of copyright and other IP rights and passing off, and breach of the terms of a licensing agreement in respect of the use of Ryanair’s data.
• Acting for Volvo and Renault Trucks in over 50 sets of High Court proceedings which have been instituted on foot of a decision by the European Commission that several truck manufacturers engaged in unlawful conduct in relation to truck pricing and the timing and passing on of the costs for the introduction of emission technologies. Volvo and Renault Trucks together with other truck manufacturers were the subject of the European Commission Decision and were subsequently fined a record €2.93bn.
• Acting for the Musgrave Group in the successful defence of a Commercial Court injunction application by a shopping centre landlord seeking to enforce a “keep open” covenant in a lease. This was the first such successful defence in the Irish courts.
• Acting for Facebook in defending Irish High Court proceedings brought by public figures in relation to alleged fake advertisements appearing on its platform.
• Representing CRH plc and Roadstone Limited over a period of 9 years in their successful defence of circa 400 cases launched in the High Court by homeowners and insurers where allegations were made against multiple parties, including Roadstone Limited (a subsidiary of CRH plc), that material supplied in the construction of houses was defective. In January 2020, all claims against CRH plc and Roadstone were withdrawn.
• Acting on behalf of Gallaher (Dublin) Limited and Benson and Hedges Limited in the defence of multiparty litigation brought by smokers and former smokers seeking damages for injuries alleged to have arisen from the consumption of tobacco products, ultimately securing a dismissal of all claims
• Advising a global insurer on complex coverage issues arising from a significant material damage claim following a fire at high-profile retail premises. The value of the claim was in excess of €35m.