Jeremy Gauntlett SC's CV

Degree

Beit Scholar at the University of Stellenbosch

Rhodes scholar at New College, Oxford

Awarded a Harvard graduate fellowship

 

Jeremy Gauntlett has provided expert evidence on several occasions in relation to South African and Namibian commercial law, law of contract and tort and admiralty law. He practises at both the Cape and Johannesburg Bars, with chambers in both cities.

He has frequently been leading counsel in the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court of Appeal, the Competition Appeal Court and the Labour Appeal Court (since 1994), he frequently sits as an arbitrator.

Career

Called to the Bar in London (Gray's Inn in 1993).

Took silk in South Africa in 1989.

Door tenant at 4/5 Gray's Inn Square and in recent years at Brick Court Chambers.

Former president of the Cape Bar.

National chairman (for three terms) of the General Council of the Bar of South Africa.

Judge of the Court of Appeal of Lesotho since 1997.

Appointed to three successive terms as a South African Law Reform Commissioner since 1996.

Member of the Council of the University of Cape Town Chancellor to the Archbishop of Cape Town, Njongonkulu Ndungane.

Elected to a visiting scholarship at New College, Oxford Honorary professorship at the University of Stellenbosch.

Experience/Areas of Practice

  • Public law (particularly administrative and constitutional law)
  • Contractual and delictual litigation
  • Commercial and contractual disputes

Important Cases

  • Currently engaged in an IATA contractual and damages dispute between two European airlines
  • Has acted in recent weeks for Gold Fields Limited in its recent successful defence of a hostile merger
  • Representing Total in the opposed Sasol - Engen merger proceedings before South Africa's Competition Tribunal
  • Heavily engaged in human rights litigation in South Africa and Namibia prior to democratization, Counsel in many of the leading cases.
  • Appointed to a general retainer by the government of Namibia after independence, acting in a number of constitutional and international law disputes.
  • Has acted as counsel on several occasions to the president of South Africa in Constitutional Court litigation, and to a number of Ministries Counsel to the United Cricket Board of South Africa in the inquiry into South Africa's match fixing scandal, and thereafter to the ICB in the dispute relating to the threatened cancellation of the English tour of Zimbabwe
  • Led the team for the South African Minister of Finance in the Commission of Inquiry in 2002 regarding alleged manipulation of the Rand
  • Led the legal team in the continuing challenge to the last presidential election in Zimbabwe
  • Acted as counsel to High Court judge Paradza in the international tribunal convened to investigate allegations of misconduct on his part

Publications

He has contributed three titles to South Africa's equivalent of Halsbury, a number of legal articles, and has rewritten (through two editions) former Chief Justice Corbett's work on Damages in South African Law.