Alan Maclean QC

Following a double First in PPE at University College, Oxford, a Kennedy Memorial Scholarship to Harvard University and a Distinction in the Diploma of Law, Alan Maclean was called to the Bar, First in his year, in 1993.  He took Silk, at his first attempt, in 2009.  

Alan Maclean QC's practice extends to many areas of Commercial Litigation/Arbitration (including banking, civil fraud, energy and natural resources, conflicts of laws, insurance and reinsurance) and Public law.   He is first and foremost an advocate. He is equally at home in fact-heavy first instance trials, in the Commercial Court or the Chancery Division, demanding in terms of preparation, requiring mastery of complex facts, tactical planning and handling and cross-examination of witnesses, as he is tackling the very different forensic challenge of arguing points of law in the Court of Appeal or the Administrative Court. He has appeared as sole advocate in the ECJ, the House of Lords, the Court of Appeal, all divisions of the High Court and many other courts and tribunals. He has also been admitted to the Bar of the British Virgin Islands and since taking Silk has appeared in the High Court in Belfast.   

In recent months Alan Maclean QC has acted in a number of important commercial and public law cases, including: i) for the Royal Brompton hospital in its successful judicial review challenge to quash a health service consultation on the future of paediatric cardiac services:  R (Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust) v Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts [2011] EWHC (Admin) 2986 [2011] All ER (D) 44 Nov; ii) for the successful claimants in a Chancery Division action under s. 18 of the Competition Act 1998 where after trial the Court found the Defendant, Heathrow Airport Limited, to have abused its dominant position in relation to airport parking: Purple Parking Ltd v Heathrow Airport Ltd [2011] EWHC 987 (Ch); [2011] UKCLR 492;  and iii) for a member of the Crédit Agricole banking group in one of the biggest credit crunch cases to be litigated in the English Courts: CA-CIB v IKB. 

Most recently, Alan has completed a Commercial Court hearing acting for a major French engineering company in a claim under s. 68 Arbitration Act 1996 challenging an arbitral award concerned with LPG carrier vessels on the basis that it was obtained by fraud: (judgment pending).  Other recent Commercial work includes:  advising in relation to the taking of security for funding advanced to Russian commodity producers via assignments of contractual rights; acting in a performance bond case that involved novel legal issues arising from the UN, EU and UK sanctions regime against the Gadaffi regime in Libya; appearing in arbitration and related Commercial Court proceedings (under s. 44 of the Arbitration Act) on behalf of a leading Russian businessman in a dispute concerning interests in Sibir Energy plc; acting for Lufthansa in judicial review and Commercial Court proceedings concerned with a put option relating to British Midland Plc; acting for international steel traders in a letter of credit arbitration and appearing in an arbitration between Swiss and Canadian energy companies concerning Colombian mining interests.  

On the public law side, Alan Maclean QC has acted for the Government in many high profile cases. He was chosen to act for the Prime Minister, Mr Blair, and Alastair Campbell, among others, in the Hutton Inquiry.   When he took Silk, he had been a member of the Attorney General's Panel of Counsel for 10 years, having been promoted to the ‘A' Panel in 2006. As a Panel member his clients included No 10 Downing Street, HM Treasury (including, most recently, in relation to the Parliamentary Ombudsman's investigation of the regulation of Equitable Life), the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Justice.  He has been a member of the Attorney-General's Panel of Counsel for Freedom of Information litigation since its inception, and has appeared in several high profile cases in this field for various parts of the Government.  

Shortly after taking Silk, Alan Maclean QC appeared for the French oil major, Total, in appeals to the Court of Appeal by Total and by Shell arising from the Buncefield oil terminal explosion, raising  complex points on various contractual indemnity provisions and on the scope of the law of negligence: [2010] EWCA Civ 180.    Shortly before taking Silk, he appeared for the successful appellant in an important case on the basis of ‘knowing receipt' liability, its interface with the law of restitution and the ambit of the Civil Liability (Contribution) Act 1978: Charter v City Index [2008] Ch 313 (CA).  

Since taking Silk, Alan Maclean QC has continued to advise HM Revenue & Customs in a number of tax cases raising issues of statutory construction and public law principle, most recently concerned with the taxation treatment of ‘image rights' payments to leading sportsmen.