"A brilliant intellect brimming with ideas."
Charlotte is a versatile junior whose practice covers all aspects of commercial litigation and international arbitration together with competition, EU and public law. She has appeared in the Court of Appeal, High Court, in each case both as part of a team in heavy hearings and as sole counsel. She has also appeared before the Court of Justice and the General Court, where she retains the right to appear thanks to her Irish Bar qualification. She has undertaken substantial arbitrations under each of the ICC, UNCITRAL, LCIA, CIArb and ICSID rules.
Significant current and recent instructions include:
Before commencing practice at the Bar, Charlotte spent a year as Judicial Assistant to Lord Clarke and Lord Sumption in the Supreme Court, during which she worked on a wide variety of cases across her current practice areas, covering topics such as penalty clauses, unjust enrichment, contractual damages, illegality, joint tortfeasorship, antisuit injunctions, human rights, data retention, and proportionality.
Before pupillage, she taught contract law at University College London and King’s College London, and spent time as a stagiaire at Shearman & Sterling’s International Arbitration Group in Paris, where she worked on a substantial arbitration under the ICSID rules. She read law at Cambridge University, then completed the LLM at Harvard Law School and the BCL at Oxford University, where her studies focused in particular on private international law, contract law and restitution. She was the 2013 Eldon Law Scholar (awarded annually to the most promising Oxford graduate going to the Bar).
Charlotte is fluent in French and German, has a working knowledge of Spanish, and has been learning Italian during lockdown. She is called to the Irish Bar and is a member of the Irish Law Library.
Charlotte accepts instructions in all areas of chambers’ commercial work, and across a range of industry sectors. She has experience of heavy commercial litigation and arbitration in which she works as part of a team, as well as of appearing as sole counsel in the Commercial Court.
She is particularly comfortable with questions of private international law (including in light of Brexit), contract damages and unjust enrichment, owing to her academic background in these subjects. Her experience in practice covers, in particular, banking & financial services, civil fraud, energy & natural resources, data and information technology, pharmaceuticals, insurance, and auditors’ negligence. (Further specialist financial services cases are found under the “Public” section.) She is a contributor to the Journal of International Banking & Financial Law.
Current and recent instructions include:
Charlotte frequently advises and settles pleadings, led or as sole counsel, in relation to a range of commercial issues, including:
Reported pro bono cases include:
Charlotte has acted in a range of cartel damages cases (including concerning the FX, Trucks, cables, air cargo and copper fixings cartels), as well as in abuse of dominance claims (including arising from the Commission’s Google Search decision) and cases concerning substantive breach of competition law (in particular pay-for-delay litigation). She has particular experience of acting and advising in relation to collection action proceedings on the claimant side.
Current and recent instructions include:
Charlotte is qualified as a barrister in Ireland, enabling her to give ongoing advice and representation on pure EU law matters. She is a member of the Law Library. Her fluent French often comes in useful in EU legal research.
Charlotte has developed a particular expertise in pharmaceutical regulatory issues (including through her involvement in the major competition law pharmaceutical case GlaxoSmithKline v CMA [2018] CAT 4). Significant instructions in this area include:
Other EU law instructions include:
Charlotte worked on a wide range of public law cases during her time at the UK Supreme Court. Current and recent public law instructions include:
Charlotte accepts pro bono instructions as appropriate, often in the fields of public, human rights and public international law, or through Advocate. Recent pro bono clients include the Human Dignity Trust, Liberty, ClientEarth, the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre, Corruption Watch, and the Children’s Rights Alliance for England.
COMBAR, BEG, ALBA, LCLCBA
"A pleasure to deal with: knowledgeable, charismatic and personable. She instils a lot of confidence." "Very diligent, dedicated, very strong and detail-oriented." (Chambers & Partners 2022)
"Incredibly easy to work with; a team player who takes on board comments from across the team and works incredibly hard." Legal 500 2022
"Extremely thorough, yet very user-friendly, she is knowledgeable yet approachable, and always available." Legal 500 2022
"Very thorough and diligent; extremely hard-working and conscientious; thinks through problems fully." Legal 500 2022
"A brilliant intellect brimming with ideas." Legal 500 2021
"A very capable junior, her work is very useful, thorough and clear." Legal 500 2021
"Charlotte is a brilliant intellect, brimming with ideas and very hard working. She is also a pleasure to work with and great with clients." Legal 500 2021